
1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



ES UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



INTERNATIONAL POLICY OF THE 
GREAT POWERS. 



THE 



INTERNATIONAL POLICY 



GREAT POWERS. 



y 

BY PHILIP JAMES BAILEY, 

AUTHOR OF 'FESTUS.' 




LONDON: 

SAUNDERS, OTLEY, AND CO. 

6Q, BROOK STREET, HANOVER SQUARE. 

1861 



T&. 



v:& 



LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, 
AND CHARING CROSS. 



Ul 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Austria 3 

Prussia 41 

Germany and Scandinavia 65 

Russia 101 

France 157 

Great Britain 211 



PREFACE. 



The principal Powers of Europe are identical 
with three great races, — the Kelt, the Teuton, 
and the Sclave ; and these in their primary 
aspects and main branches and combinations 
constitute the general sum of Continental 
population. All came from the East, as is 
supposed, and in the order above indicated. 
The East, indeed, appears to have thrown off 
its masses of humanity as the sun is thought 
by some philosophers to have projected from 
its surface the planetary bodies of the universe ; 
and, like these, the former also became wan- 
derers. Whatever there may be among the 
celestial, among the earthly wayfarers the 
ruling principle was apparently, at the outset, 



Vlll PREFACE. 

less attraction than repulsion; and such to a 
great degree — notwithstanding separate and 
defined positions — it still continues. 

The outward tendency of civilization has 
always manifestly been westward; and while 
those peoples more strictly called Eastern, 
because there more permanently situated, have 
rapidly arrived at a certain degree of eminence, 
and then become stationary or retrograde, the 
nations of the West, though dating their civili- 
zation later in life, have always shown — at 
least during the historic period — a more elastic 
and progressive career. 

Of these, even, some are far more advanced 
than others in the arts, the elegancies of life, 
and the general results of civilization, both 
substantial and refined. But in this very supe- 
riority — it is obvious to the lightest reflection 
— is partly involved a danger of a most serious 
nature — it might almost be characterised as 
a fatality, the history of the world upon this 



PREFACE. IX 

point being painfully explicit. It seems, there- 
fore, almost incumbent upon those nations who 
have consciously attained to a certain pitch 
of civilization, either to prepare for a gradual 
but sensible decline, from the consequences 
of over-refinement, over-stimulated intellect, or 
minutely-divided industry ; or, springing back 
to that position from which the race originally 
started, to cultivate, in some degree at least, 
those warlike aspirations and propensities 
which are the universal instinct of humanity 
in its present condition, and which, however 
apparently incompatible with reason, were pro- 
bably implanted there for some good purpose. 

In vain morality abjures, philanthropy 
abhors, religion condemns, war. The tradi- 
tions of man's heart are unfortunately all in 
favour of it; and nations not unfrequently 
draw the sword as their most solemn mani- 
festo. War indeed is sometimes felt to be a 
necessity, irrespective of success ; sometimes 



X PREFACE. 

a glory, independent of its object. Xo doubt 
this is a sad reflection, but it forces itself 
upon the mind. There are times when moral 
influence is sufficient for the adjustnient of 
affairs between nations, or within their own 
separate confines : and well it is when a people 
can obey contentedly the solemn mandates of 
a Solon, or a Samuel ; or even listen assentingly 
to the admonitions of a Burke, wisest of merely 
human legislators : but periods constantly 
recur in the history of the world when the 
only accepted authority is that of the sword. 

The profession — if anything could, it might 
be thought — of a common religion would have 
tended, if not sufficed, in compliance with the 
imitative and emulative propensities of the 
human mind, not only to a greater resemblance 
in internal institutions, but to a more marked 
approximation towards the moral standard of 
that Divine code by which the several nations 
affirm themselves to be bound : but it has not 



PREFACE, XI 

so proved ; for, while at different seras, on doc- 
trinal points — many of which were altogether 
beyond the range of the understanding — the 
various sections of Christendom have indulged 
in the bitterest animosities and the fiercest and 
most deadly persecutions, they have recently, 
abandoning all controversy, moral or mystical, 
agreed simply to ignore altogether the plainest 
and least debateable precepts of their religion ; 
so that, by implied assent of all, not only may 
nominal professors practise, but the priests of 
every Church may preach, and the purists of 
every denomination justify, those enormities 
which are the natural efflorescence of the 
warlike passions; and they thereby virtually 
proclaim either their own inconsistency or 
the utter powerlessness of their faith to control 
the proclivities of our original constitution. 
Christianity, in fact, is confessed by all the 
peoples in Europe; and so sincerely, that it 
is never appealed to when its decision might 



Xll PREFACE. 

be effective. Mankind has, therefore, yet to 
see, and to consent to, the introduction of an 
influence capable practically of diverting the 
grand current of the world's affairs from those 
channels in which they have hitherto unin- 
terruptedly flowed from the days of Nimrod 
to Napoleon, — the channels of ambition, and 
interest, and luxury, and national aggran- 
disement. 

If a philosophic mind, speculative rather 
than sceptical, should here pause for a moment 
to inquire why this should be so ; why the 
supposed interests of different nations should 
so far diverge as, in the face of Christianity 
and philanthropy, to lead to a policy of unre- 
mitting reciprocal hostility, the answer may 
unhappily too readily be found in the conclu- 
sion furnished by experience : that the ine- 
radicable diversities of race, original varieties 
of temperament, of social habits, nay, even of 
mental processes, sow in themselves the seeds 



PREFACE. Xlll 

of permanent antagonism ; that sentiments, 
sympathies, and antipathies are as ultimate 
and irresolvable facts as the genera of animals 
and minerals in the mixed constitution of the 
world; that charity or philanthropy, the only 
common bond which religion supplies for our 
dealings with others of the same or different 
creed, is, when applied to masses of men, wholly 
inoperative ; that the highest development of 
the species appears in somewise inextricably 
involved in the attempt to achieve by force a 
national, or tribal predominance; that how- 
ever false to their faith, men must be true 
to their nature ; and that just reason, no doubt 
identical with true religion, whose holy and 
united influence should subdue or chastise the 
fatal discord of the inferior elements of our 
nature, never is, like the prima materies of 
philosophy, to be found in its pure or original 
shape ; but asserted only by the theorist and 
believed in solely by the neophyte, is never 



XIV PREFACE. 

humanly beheld except as disguised by sophists 
or distorted by fanatics ; corrupted by the igno- 
rance of peoples, or rendered contemptible by 
the presumption of kings. 

When, if ever, in the lapse of generations, 
mankind shall, not the less, emerge from 
the night of national antipathies and" the 
dubious twilight of cherished animosities into 
the broad day of universal sympathy, and 
the pure and hallowed light of a charitable 
and practical religion; when strife shall have 
refined itself into competition, and compe- 
tition become elevated into emulation; when 
the mysterious stream of time, so often tur- 
bid with the blood of nations, shall have 
been changed by the priest and prophet of a 
regenerated humanity into a river rolling with 
gold, — the gold of peace, and wisdom, and 
felicity : history will doubtless be enabled to 
trace, under the inspiration of her Divine In- 
terpreter, in one continuous and luminous 



PREFACE. XV 

narrative, the gradual conversion or the sudden 
transmutation of these elements and bases 
of society, whereby every separate agency of 
civilization shall be shown to be identical with 
the finger of Providence, and the hand of man 
the veritable stamp and impress of the hand 
of God. But, while the world awaits that 
change, to us, and to any save of enthusiastic 
and momentary vision, much of this is imprac- 
ticable. The key to the past is still hidden 
in the future ; we can only accept the relations 
of things as they are. 



AUSTKIA. 



AUSTRIA. 



Austria, the successor of the Holy Eoman 
Empire, for a long period the centre of European 
policy and always of diplomatic activity, forms, 
with its component nationalities, races, and re- 
ligions, a vast and complex Power, outwardly 
at least compact ; the exigencies of whose con- 
dition it is impossible to contemplate without 
deep interest ; and the permanence of whose 
position as a leading Power is apparently and 
simply a beneficial necessity. 

With one third of her population Evan- 
gelical Protestants, Greek Catholics, and Jews, 
the solid majority, still attached to the Church 
of Eome, have always given to Austria a pre- 

b2 



AUSTRIA. 



ponderating influence in matters of religion 
throughout Central Europe ; as her long and 
severe contests, both internally and externally, 
with Bohemians, Swedes, and others, and her 
want of sympathy at the time with her only 
hitherto reforming Emperor, sufficiently testify. 
Notable for obedience to ecclesiastical authority, 
Austria, by her recent Concordat with Eome, 
assumed a somewhat reactionary attitude ; but 
its operation, having been perceived to be 
inimical to the common equality and impartial 
toleration of different forms of religion w 7 hich 
had been for a long time effectually established 
throughout the empire, has been in all direc- 
tions judiciously restricted. The position of 
the Church in its spiritual capacity and 
authority, as well as in certain matters re- 
lating to temporalities, not being satisfactory, 
it was only natural and just that the ruling 
powers at Eome and Vienna should seek a re- 
conciliation of their interests ; and that while 



AUSTRIA. 



the former was redoubling its exertions, through 
the many legitimate channels at its disposal, 
for the conservation of the secular power in its 
present form and circumstances, the Emperor, 
wishing to displace, by priestly help, the 
tendencies of the people to press upon the 
springs of government, had, in reality, by 
surrendering certain privileges to the Church, 
aimed, by diminishing his power, to increase 
his influence. But although in Austria, as 
everywhere else, a reaction has taken place 
during the last twenty years in favour of the 
Church, and although it thus became necessary 
to reinaugurate a freer and more perfect con- 
nection between the national Church and its 
spiritual head, yet, considering the temper of 
the times with regard to religious dogmas and 
sacerdotal authority, the Imperial government 
acted unwisely in permitting suddenly so great 
a change, and at the same time magnifying it 
by authoritative announcement. Measures such 



b AUSTRIA. 

as this, and treated in such, manner, are beyond 
all doubt profoundly impolitic. Like damp gun- 
powder, they may be totally inoperative ; they 
may be fearfully explosive. In such circum- 
stances the Church enlarges her dignity by not 
exerting her authority ; which could only have 
the effect of adding to social antagonism and 
political passion that bitterest and most subtle 
of human sentiments which in different cir- 
cumstances the laity of all communions dis- 
tinguish by names indicative of various degrees 
of execration, but the bigots of all sects agree 
to denominate zeal. 

The main characteristic of Austrian policy, 
both in its domestic and foreign aspects, is 
well known ; it is the support of what is called 
legitimacy, which means the dynastic heritage 
of nations by individuals of particular families ; 
the conservatism of ancient rights and constitu- 
tions ; and the maintenance of legally instituted 
authority. These are good principles in them- 



AUSTRIA. 7 

selves ; necessary, or for the most part highly 
useful, to the stability of society ; and the only 
fault to be found with the advocacy of them is 
when they are adduced as antagonistic to social 
progress and the natural expansion of popular 
rights in ages more enlightened than those in 
which their beginnings are to be traced. There 
are more good things capable of improvement 
than bad ones, and such are mostly the con- 
stitutions of nations. 

In considering, first, briefly the relations of 
the government to the different states of 
which the empire is composed, the proclivity of 
Austrian policy hitherto has not only not been 
in the direction last spoken of, but unhappily 
too often towards the repression or taking away, 
as in the case of Hungary for the crime of 
its revolutionary outburst, what popular and 
legislative rights the citizens claimed still to 
possess. 

These advantages, it is true, excited the 



8 AUSTRIA. 

active jealousy of some of their fellow-subjects 
in less favoured sections of the empire, and, so 
far as any liberal institutions formed naturally 
to a great extent the admiration and ideal 
of others less favoured, might seem to justify 
the Government in its subsequent treatment, 
if the application of it had not been in the 
wrong direction ; for, while after the success- 
ful suppression* of the revolt the wiser course 
would manifestly have been to diminish the 
disparity between Hungarian and other semi- 
national institutions, by elevating these to a 
higher level with it, the object of its Austrian 
rulers appeared to be, by utterly prostrating 
the privileges of that troublesome and obstinate 
state, to effect a general provincial uniformity 
on the basis of certain other divisions possessing 
no rights nor privileges whatever, save that of 
unqualified dependence upon the central and 
imperial authority, — an object analogous to 
that sought in the religious sphere by means 



AUSTKIA. 9 

of the Concordat. But in the development of 
this process of degradation all parties, it is 
needless to say, were discontented and disap- 
pointed : not only the Hungarians themselves, 
who keenly felt their reduced condition ; not 
only the other constituents of the Sclavonic 
race, who suffered proportionately in the dis- 
paragement of their head; but also a large 
proportion of the Germanic element of the 
empire, which saw in the suppression of all 
legislative independence the death-blow to every 
free institution of a similar nature ; but, more 
than all, the Government itself — conscious of 
the failure of the regime adopted by it under 
the influence of advisers then fortunately no 
more, and which may be denoted simply 
by three words, Suppress, degrade, centralize 
— was discontented, disappointed, discomfited ; 
and under the pressure of considerations forced 
upon its attention during the closing events 
of the Italian war, pointing to the imminent 



10 AUSTRIA. 

danger of a revolutionary coalition between the 
so-called patriots of Hungary and Northern 
Italy, came to the wise conclusion of altogether 
altering the system upon which it had hitherto 
acted ; of conceding something to the spirit of 
the times, and of widening and elevating the 
foundation of imperial authority by the hitherto 
unthought-of expedient of establishing popular 
rights ; and by respecting the natural dignity 
of a people claiming the privilege of a share 
in their own government. This so worthy 
object, under the auspices of an enlightened 
administration, has been successfully accom- 
plished in the rehabilitation of the Old Im- 
perial Council on a broader base than here- 
tofore and with enlarged powers, consisting of 
members partly nominated by the Crown, 
partly elected as representatives of provinces ; 
the constitution of which important ruling 
body not inaptly expresses at once the social 
exigencies of the empire and its political posi- 



AUSTKIA. 11 

tion between the dumb autocracy of the East 
and the democratic garrulity of Western na- 
tions. Such an institution, elastic and doubt- 
less improvable in various functions, is of the 
utmost value in itself, and easily capable of 
adaptation by other states in an approximate 
political condition ; for it is from the compara- 
tive imperfection, and consequent expansibility, 
of rude institutions, that their benefits result : 
and no one but certain sages of the British 
press — those who from the first have merely 
ignored or libelled the Austrian Eeichsrath — 
would be capable of considering democratic 
institutions suitable for that somewhat hetero- 
geneous empire, the honest attempts of wiiose 
rulers to walk in the ways of a constitutional 
government were worthy of a more earnest and 
more sympathetic welcome. 

There is, indeed, no denying the fact that 
the establishment of the Imperial Council has 
entirely disarranged the bearings of the old 



12 AUSTRIA. 

parties in the state, and their representatives 
abroad; the Austrian Government and the 
supporters of the new general system of popular 
representation and election now actually oc- 
cupy the place of the van, the movement, the 
Liberal party ; while the cause of Hungary has 
a selfish and domineering character attached 
to it which is repulsive to men of liberal senti- 
ments, but who look below the surface of 
things. For what is the object, and what the 
grievance, of the Hungarians? Why should 
they be encouraged to insist upon an autonomy 
which results in a refusal to pay their just 
share in the general taxation of the country? 
What ground of superiority exists on their part, 
that their troops should not be liable to take 
service in all the varied districts of the empire 
along with those of the other nationalities? 
Does the fact of their having given a king to 
the empire three hundred years ago justify 
these presumptions and exemptions ? Are the 



AUSTRIA. 13 

actual rights of living nations, their peace and 
prosperity, to be sacrificed with impunity to a 
pedantic and black-letter spirit of revolution 
which would imperil the well-being of millions, 
on account of the omission of certain cere- 
monies and formalities of coronation when the 
state was in the throes of a sanguinary con- 
vulsion, for which the complainants are them- 
selves responsible ? And, finally, who are 
they for whom and by whom these demands 
and pretensions are set and kept on foot? 
Are they — as it will be, of course, supposed — 
the whole, or the vast majority, of the people 
of Hungary ? Far from it. They are the 
Magyars, who do not form one-third of the 
population, the masses of whom are mostly a 
despised and powerless class. 

The truth is, it is only in England, where 
free discussion is held to be of more importance 
than accurate judgment, that, amidst the mis- 
conceptions natural upon such matters, and 



14 AUSTRIA. 

the national foible of our day for encouraging- 
rebellion, any enthusiasm is felt in favour of 
what are called Hungarian rights and liber- 
ties. The Germans generally, and even most 
of the Sclavonian populations around, would be 
astonished at the interest manifested on that 
theme by many eloquent orators and soul- 
stirring editors in this country ; a fact which 
can only be accounted for from the former 
being a little better acquainted with the merits 
of the case than the sages of Fieet-street- 
cum-Finsbury and their followers. The Go- 
vernment of Austria is in general more liberal 
than the character and tendencies, in divers 
ways, of several of its constituent elements 
would lead an incautious observer to suppose ; 
as may be noted in the instance of those in- 
teresting and romantic mountaineers of the 
Tyrol, who are actuated by a bitter and con- 
temptuous hatred of all professing the Pro- 
testant form of faith; and whose animosities 



AUSTRIA. 15 

the Imperial Government, in deference to the 
just rights and natural feelings of others their 
fellow-subjects, sternly and warrantably re- 
strains. But the laws of Hungary, for the 
reimposition of which so many publicists and 
agitators assume the most frantic attitudes, or 
utter the most delirious nonsense, are, many 
of them — as in their persecuting spirit against 
Jews and heretics — simply a disgrace to the 
tolerant principles wisely prevailing in the 
present age, and the enforcement of which 
were tantamount to the reinstallation of a 
mediaeval savagery that would bear comparison 
with the triumphs of the Inquisition. These, 
be it understood, in defiance of the more hu- 
mane, enlightened, and comprehensive system 
of laws obtaining in the more strictly Germanic 
states of the empire, are the standards of 
Magyar legislation — the legislation of the domi- 
nant race in Hungary, and which those here- 
ditary heroes are sadly solicitous to restore. 



16 AUSTRIA. 

And why did the Hungarian rebellion fail ? 
Because it was not supported by the masses of 
the population ; and because it is undeniable 
that, in the face of Magyar domination and 
Magyar laws, the great body of the people 
sympathised, naturally and reasonably enough, 
rather with the. legions of the Czar, whom, 
though owing political allegiance to the Em- 
peror of Austria, they, as Sclavonians, consider 
their natural head. Nor, on the other hand, 
need any more be said to account for that 
more than respectful distance at which the 
Court of Vienna placed itself immediately 
afterwards in relation to its imperial friend and 
saviour. Benefits may be as oppressive as 
wrongs. 

It is much to be regretted that Hungary, in 
a territorial aspect the main element of the 
grandeur of Austria, should, in its social and 
political condition, prove a chief source also of 
her embarrassments ; though these, perhaps, 



AUSTEIA. 17 

may not be so wholly insuperable as some 
well-known patriots would lead us to sup- 
pose ; and who, constantly speaking of Switzer- 
land as an independent state, maintain that, 
in certain contingencies, Hungary could at 
least do what Switzerland has done. But — 
apart from the natural reflection that, while 
one Switzerland may be for Europe a needful 
luxury, two might be a superfluity — to retain 
Hungary is a necessity for Austria, if she is to 
continue one of the dominant Powers of Eu- 
rope ; in other words, if the present equili- 
brium of races and forces is to subsist. 

A few words will suffice for the treatment of 
the position and policy of Austria towards 
Poland, as far as they are directly concerned 
with each other. Her share in the first par- 
tition, bearing in mind the recent robbery of 
Silesia by Prussia, may be regarded as an act 
of political precaution, instances of which are to 
be found in the history of every country, and 

c 



18 AUSTKIA. 

are rather to be justified by the event than by 
the means or the motive ; for, as contributing 
to the division of the Sclavonic race, and sub- 
jecting it to the counterpoise of others, opposed 
under a common dominion to their individual 
predominance, the Western nations generally 
may be credited with the benefit actually de- 
rived from diminished danger and relief from 
alarm. The Sclavonic race, generally supersti- 
tious and unenquiring thralls of ecclesiastical, 
military, and imperial authority, must always 
be distrusted by the more enlightened but less 
socially cohesive races of Keltic and Teutonic 
origin, in whose mental characteristics may be 
numbered a propensity to reasoning, and, as a 
necessary accompaniment, a tendency to limit 
the exercise of irresponsible power. The nor- 
mal state of the Sclavonic mind is favourable to 
despotism. Their political revolutions, which 
have never effected any improvement in their 
laws, have, after the Oriental manner^ had 



AUSTRIA. 19 

principally in contemplation a personal change, 
not a constitutional advance. They have 
cushioned their rack, and padded their yoke ; 
they cultivate the beautiful but servile arts an- 
cillary to despotism; and are safe even from 
themselves; while united in imagination they 
remain divided in allegiance. 

Now, as many honest and enthusiastic exiles, 
inoculated with ideas of French democracy, are 
fond of picturing to others an independent 
and united Hungary and Poland, each a living 
protest respectively against Eussian and Aus- 
trian despotism, it may be well to contemplate 
for a moment this political theorem, and en- 
deavour to ascertain, with what precision we 
can, the probable consequences. But if there 
be any truth or reliance to be placed in eth- 
nology and its dependent sciences, we know 
that Hungary, Galicia, Bohemia, and other 
provinces now forming part of the Austrian 
empire, are occupied with a Sclave population ; 

o2 



20 AUSTRIA. 

and it may be certainly inferred that in case of 
a successful attempt on the part of Hungary to 
escape from Austrian rule, these members of 
the state above alluded to would cast in their 
lot with hers ; while Austria herself would be 
reduced to the. condition of a minor Power, 
dependent entirely on German elements. We 
then behold Hungary and Galicia; or the prin- 
cipal part of Austrian Poland, independent 
Powers, face to face with Eussia. Could matters 
long remain so ? Evidently, not a twelvemonth. 
The Poles of Galicia, akin to those of Eussia, 
would, if in any more independent position, be 
an example and incitement to perpetual dis- 
content on the part of the latter resident in 
Cracow, in Warsaw, and other districts of the 
Eussian empire. War must follow ; and the 
old feuds between the Great and Little Eus- 
sians (that is, the Poles and Muscovites) would 
inevitably be revived. But, except on the sup- 
position of a peaceable secession, of all things 



AUSTRIA. 21 

the most unlikely ; and granting, therefore, the 
existence of hostilities between Hungary and 
Russia, the result of these with the mass of the 
population of the former belligerent power, con- 
sisting of Slovaks and others who dislike while 
they submit to the Magyars, may readily be 
foreseen. Galicia would be ceded, by way of 
peace-offering, to Russia, who would thus acquire, 
on very easy terms — what she has notoriously 
long speculated upon — the Carpathians as a 
frontier. But her toleration of Hungarian 
independence would be simply parenthetical ; 
and all the nations of cognate origin would soon 
be glad to find themselves sitting in peace under 
the shadow of the great Sclavonian tree. 

Let us then beware how far we assist the de- 
signs of doubtless well-meaning and eloquent 
exiles, who, burning with hostility against the 
authority which has expatriated them, are eager 
to propose or sanction any combination which 
appears to promise plentiful distress or embar- 



22 AUSTRIA. 

rassment to the object of their hate, quite 
regardless of the more general and ulterior 
results to the highest civilization and most solid 
liberties of Europe ; whose only safeguard 
against an inconceivable calamity consists in 
the maintenance of the present politic, if some- 
what complicated arrangements. Similar con- 
clusions might be demonstrated, mutatis mu- 
tandis, respecting the resuscitation of Poland, 
and all the chimerical schemes and aspirations 
in its behalf. There are many things which 
when once lost can never be restored, whether 
that loss has been produced by natural process 
or by violence ; nor as yet has the world seen 
any instance of youth, or life, or national inde- 
pendence, twice flourishing in the same subject 
in a condition of perfection. 

Exposed to perils on all sides, these two 
inferior states, whose independence is by many 
thought so desirable, would, it is needless to 
prove by any additional reasons, at the earliest 



AUSTRIA. 23 

period possible, again fall irretrievably under 
the domination of one of the surrounding 
Powers ; for it is perfectly idle to suppose that 
those who are essentially of the same blood and 
language can operate as any check upon each 
other, unless allotted territorially to other 
Powers whose interests are not coincident ; and 
while at the same time among this sovereign 
fraternity of states, a certain proportion of 
territory, population, or physically productive 
power is a necessary condition. Finally, putting 
out of view as wholly untenable any proposal 
for a republican form of government, there 
remains, apart from the Imperial Houses, no 
central rallying point in either of these pro- 
vinces in the shape of a traditional family, or 
any other, which could stand as the nucleus of 
an independent government. 

There is every reason, however, now to be- 
lieve that much of the selfish and arrogant 
pretensions of Hungary are being quietly 



24 AUSTEIA. 

abandoned, and that all classes of her popula- 
tion are being brought to perceive that, in the 
wise reformatory measure before named, con- 
ceded both to herself and sister provinces, a 
juster, more uniform, and more provident 
government, gradually granting to all its sub- 
jects a high equality of popular rights, may, 
by effectually conciliating its various national- 
ities, happily and permanently consolidate the 
whole. 

The principle of nationalities is a force both 
conservative and destructive; one which in 
its milder form is productive of a wholesome 
tone among the various members of civilised 
society, but abundantly capable of exhibition as 
a ruinous and deadly irritant. It is a principle 
which, while indisputably one of the most 
powerful which actuate society, is, when ope- 
rating in its pure and simple capacity, a bar- 
barous principle ; and, although the founda- 
tions of barbarism and civilization are common 



AUSTRIA. 25 

and concentric in human nature, it is only 
when modified and harmonized by the com- 
pression of surrounding influences and restricted 
by the interpenetration of rival interests, civil 
and political, that the stability and force requi- 
site for the action of government can be com- 
bined and secured at the same time with the 
claims of a just and refined humanity. 

War is the inevitable result of vicious and 
selfish policy. But whether the world would 
get on better without evil of any kind, is a 
problem which, while sternly set before us by 
the necessities of our nature, religion is always 
striving to solve individually, and law and 
diplomacy internationally and in the mass. 

In order to penetrate the causes of the recent 
war in Italy, and fully appreciate the policy 
and position of Austria in relation to that 
country, the following considerations will, 
doubtless, have their due weight. 

Power is in the north. The pressure of the 



26 AUSTRIA. 

great dominating Powers of Europe is south- 
wards and towards the sunny sea which bounds 
the Continent in that direction, opening an 
exit for the products, providing an adit for the 
introduction of luxuries to the hardy and indus- 
trious inhabitants of the interior, and affording 
their governments the opportunity of taking 
part in other great events by the establishment 
and employment of a suitable navy. 

In possession of the fertile plains and popu- 
lous cities of Venetia and Lombardy, ceded to 
Austria finally by treaties conceived in a spirit 
of hostile repression to France in the day of her 
humiliation, and in the gradually but palpably 
growing preponderance of Austrian influence 
among the Italian States — of whose urban 
population many always cherished the tra- 
ditions, still troublesome, of ancient self-govern- 
ment and republican independence — in these 
ominous antecedents, overshadowing a number 
of minor states, for ages the common arena 



AUSTRIA. 27 

of French and German " difficulties/' were 
paraded the ensigns of that bitter rivalry which 
fails never to mature, as we have seen, into 
active warfare ; and which, abruptly terminated 
for the present by the loss of one of those pro- 
vinces, may even now any day be renewed on 
the principle of winning both or losing all. 

To a nation like ourselves, isolated from all 
direct concern in the struggle, the results may 
be a matter of much indifference, and popular 
sympathies be with one or other belligerent as 
the conditions or interests of domestic policy 
may chance to decide ; but apart from the 
pretensions of the Court of Turin, which may 
be reserved for future consideration, and on 
certain grounds, social and moral, for the con- 
venience and interest of vast masses of con- 
tinental population, it is unreasonable to expect — 
it may be unwise to wish — to see Austria denuded 
of her remaining possessions on the north-east 
coast of the Adriatic. The command of the 



28 AUSTRIA. 

Adriatic is traditionally attached to Venice ; 
and this Austria can never suffer to become the 
subject of dispute. For it is to be observed 
that, while the new kingdom of Italy has, com- 
pared with its superficial area, an extensive 
sea-coast and many most important harbours 
both for purposes of naval armament and com- 
mercial intercourse, the vast empire of Austria 
is mainly dependent for those objects upon 
Venice and Trieste. To those who contend 
that Austria ought in such case to be content 
with Trieste alone, it is scarcely necessary to 
reply that the upper part of the Adriatic is a 
narrow sea, and that two ports, so situated, 
each in possession of what must in all pro- 
bability be considered for some time to come 
as hostile powers, cannot, unless by miracle, 
occupy such a position without ensuring per- 
petual collision between the respective navies — - 
in other words, chronic warfare between Austria 
and Italy. There are others who, referring to 



AUSTRIA. 29 

many fine ports and naval stations on the coast 
and among the islands of Dalmatia, affirm 
that, on the supposition above referred to, 
Austria would find these suitable and sufficient ; 
but this is a mistake as far as regards com- 
mercial purposes, at least; for with the ex- 
ception of the narrow strip of territory border- 
ing the gulf which belongs to Austria, these 
ports are the outlets to countries in which that 
Power has either no interest, or the inhabitants 
of which are totally destitute of those habits 
and commodities which alone render such 
places of importance. In addition, it must be 
remembered that, as undoubtedly the highest 
interests of England are involved in the 
maintenance of Germany at large as a great 
and powerful confederation by land and sea, 
the preservation of Venice to Austria, as in 
many respects the leading power of the Teutonic 
race, is a matter of vital value not only to that 
individual state, but to all nations of Germanic 



30 AUSTRIA. 

origin or alliances. On the other hand, Genoa 
and Spezzia have those unsurpassed natural 
advantages adequate to all requirements of the 
honour and welfare of New Italy. The case 
of Venetia is certainly not one which invokes 
our sympathies on account of popular re- 
collections associated with the enjoyment of 
past political rights, or even of good govern- 
ment, or amity with the sister states of Italy ; 
for, however great and reasonable may be the 
native aversion to Tedesehi or forestieri, it is not 
easy to believe that the citizens of Venice, 
under the present rule, can look back with 
regret to the selfish, irresponsible oligarchy 
which expired in 1797; with one or two ex- 
ceptions in its career, so much more interesting 
in poetry than illustrious in history. Our 
feelings in its favour are, therefore, connected 
with its aspirations for the future; and as the 
Austrian Government is rapidly assuming a 
constitutional character, and the province itself 



AUSTRIA. 31 

is by emigration and other causes becoming 
daily more German, it is reasonable to hope 
that, the causes of discontent being effectually 
diminished, the Venetians, by taking advan- 
tage of the political privileges offered by the 
advanced and liberal system under which they 
are now included, will ultimately recognise the 
beneficial results to be reciprocally secured 
by a more cordial union with the empire. 

Bearing in remembrance the ruinous afflictions 
which she had suffered from 1795 to 1815, it 
is scarcely to be deemed a matter of wonder- 
ment that the policy of Austria, generally, since 
that period should have been directed by the 
most determined hostility to every measure or 
event savouring in the remotest degree of re- 
semblance to democratic liberties ; but although 
grace must be conceded to the sentiments of 
a Government so situated, it is certain that this 
wild resistance to every impulse of democracy, 
and all desire for popular liberty, is as unwise 



32 AUSTRIA. 

as it is ineffectual. The conservative forces 
of society, the displacement of which the 
Austrian Government appears so much to have 
feared as the probable result of any adminis- 
trative innovations, will, there is no doubt, 
even if driven from the political platform, suf- 
ficiently fortify themselves elsewhere under 
the friendly banners of religion, or education, or 
loyalty, or law. But, in the mean time, acting 
under the influence of the dread referred to, 
Austria, as the centre of European absolutism, 
having effected treaties with the Ducal Courts 
of Tuscany, Parma, and Modena, all allied to 
the Imperial family, constitutional govern- 
ments were not only rendered impracticable, 
but the forcible suppression of every movement 
in favour of popular rights was guaranteed. In 
the States of the Church a similar object was 
secured by the military occupation of Bologna 
and other fortified towns, garrisoned by Austrian 
troops ; and with Naples an express treaty was 



AUSTRIA. 33 

concluded to prohibit the slightest manifesta- 
tion of liberal or constitutional tendencies on 
the part of either the King or the people. The 
final outcome of all this was the war of 1859 ; 
and the definitive abandonment by Austria, 
as has been, or will be done by every state in 
Europe, of the principle which till that period 
formed the foundation of her policy. 

On whatever side Austria is viewed, her diffi- 
culties undoubtedly appear to be great ; and 
because, from her very complex system, she is 
probably more sensitive to the least derange- 
ment in the condition of Europe than any other 
State, it thus happens that, while the various 
nationalities of which the empire is composed 
she is compelled to employ to check each 
other, so that in the minimum of their recipro- 
cally irritant forces a sort of equilibrium is 
effected, just sufficient to sustain the foundation 
and action of Government, it is certain that, 
from the variety of races and nations comprised 

D 



34 AUSTRIA. 

in her dominions, Austria has not only to be on 
her guard against the centrifugal tendencies of 
some of her constituent elements, but, several of 
these being mostly in a state of chronic discon- 
tent — the natural consequence of her hitherto 
neglected legislation, or the centralizing system 
so long substituted for it — she is at all times 
perhaps less absolutely secure than her jealous 
and powerful neighbours, either more or less 
socially advanced, an$l i all more politically 
uniform in their internal constitutions, who 
surround her confines. 

In the mean time, the alleged ingratitude of 
Austria to Russia, after the gratuitous sup- 
pression by the latter of the Hungarian revolt, 
shown in her vacillation and final neutrality, 
so embarrassing to the Emperor Nicholas, during 
the war on the Danube and in the Crimea, has 
effected a wholesome coolness between the two 
Powers, an estrangement indeed between the 
two peoples, which it is to be hoped no abortive 



AUSTRIA. 35 

attempts at insurrection, though concealed 
under heaps of immortelles and the disguise 
of prayers intoned before a senseless statue, 
by alarinirg their united interests, may alto- 
gether remove. On the other hand, there can 
be no doubt that the presumptive interests of 
these governments, resting mostly on the un- 
reasoning instinct of fidelity in the people to 
their rulers, instead of any rational attachment 
to moral principles or social aims, supply suffi- 
cient motives for their reunion, whenever it can 
be effected at the expense of a common victim ; 
for which position, the Principalities, it was 
thought, by reason of their more liberal insti- 
tutions, were not unlikely involuntarily to 
qualify themselves. But the state of political 
society in Europe at the present time, it must 
be confessed, is such, that both the elements of 
power and the bases of calculation are disordered 
and inverted or invalidated. 

Although therefore, apart from Italy, where 

d2 



36 



AUSTRIA. 



her star has suffered detriment, Austria has long 
ceased to be regarded as an aggressive Power, 
yet in certain contingencies dependent on the 
Turkish question, and if no disruption be pre- 
cipitated by the attempted foundation of a 
new Eoumaic dominion, her claims upon the 
Christian populations of Servia, Bosnia, Bul- 
garia, and other parts of European Turkey, 
would to many of them appear quite equal in 
point of attraction to those upon which Eussia 
calculates for the advancement of her own de- 
signs. On the borders of the Ottoman empire, 
therefore, no less than on the Drave and the 
Danube, Austria has to contend against the 
same rival striving for the same object. To 
divide the Danube between them as the com- 
mon highway and part boundary of the two 
empires is probably the secret and not ill-judged 
design of these Powers ; for there can be no 
doubt that, if exclusively under their control as 
anticipated, it might and would be greatly im- 



AUSTRIA. 37 

proved as a medium of commercial intercourse 
between the western and eastern portions of 
Europe, and even between Europe and Asia. 

In spite of the financial embarrassments too 
frequent in Austria, and maugre the sad pre- 
dictions of many ill-disposed friends, her ruin is 
not yet even probable. The resources of the 
empire are almost boundless ; and these must 
be far more seriously encroached upon than 
they have been during the last fifty years — a 
period of unparalleled trial — before insolvency 
can be pronounced. Agriculture is improving ; 
her production suffices for her own consump- 
tion ; her exports are increasing : the area of 
her deficiencies is diminishing ; manufactures are 
extending ; neither famine nor penury is known 
among the people. Nor is the army that mon- 
strous incubus upon the energies and resources 
of the state which has been supposed. Military 
service in these great Continental states being 
compulsory, it must be remembered that where 



38 AUSTRIA. 

the habits of life are simple, and the mass of the 
people uninstructed, provisions plentiful, labour 
cheap, and manufacturing and commercial en- 
terprise scarce or restricted, the army becomes 
an administrative establishment into which the 
youth of the country enter as into a provident 
institution. Where military service and agri- 
culture are the ruling if not all-inclusive ideas 
of the subject, the army is used by the Govern- 
ment as the common school of such physical 
and moral discipline as it considers desirable for 
the many, and as the main organ for the diffu- 
sion of loyaJty to the Crown and the propaga- 
tion of a spirit of reciprocal forbearance among 
the various classes and populations of the em- 
pire. Among these it forms the natural 
resource of thousands to whom compulsory 
service is a relief, as they would probably be 
otherwise without remunerative employment 
during the most active period of their lives. 



PRUSSIA. 



PRUSSIA. 



PRUSSIA, as the leading Protestant Power on 
the Continent, is in this respect, as in so many 
others, the rival of absolute and faithful Austria. 
The Prussian people are not noted for a vital 
and profound sense of dogmatic religion. Many 
degrees, doubtless, of mental culture and reli- 
gious orthodoxy are to be found between the 
enlightened classes, denizens of the universi- 
ties and capital cities, and the superstitious 
who await with anxiety the next exposure of 
the Holy Coat at Treves. The national mind, 
however, generally, and of the cultivated classes 
especially, is marked by a speculative, argu- 
mentative, and philosophical tendency. Tole- 



42 PRUSSIA. 

rant almost to a fault, and temperate nearly to 
excess, their creed is nullified neither by a 
gloomy egotism nor a fervid fanaticism. The 
Protestant bishopric of Jerusalem, which Prussia 
and Great Britain united to establish, the dio- 
cese of which precisely coincides with the peri- 
phery of the episcopal residence, recommended 
itself to the popular sympathies as a species of 
spiritual knighthood, and an almost allegorical 
crusade, which, whatever effect it might pro- 
duce upon Paynim incredulity, was certainly a 
proof that modern Germans knew better what 
was consistent with the genius of Christianity 
than our Coeur-de-Lion and his followers, or 
than their own Teutonic knighthood, the pious 
slaughterers of the Borussians. 

The form of government, originally and till 
recently a pure autocracy, having been at the 
first foundation of the kingdom imposed upon 
the people, and not having, as in early constitu- 
tional states, grown from them, the intermediate 



PEUSSIA. 43 

power of the state is found to be the army, 
which, being necessary and co-extensive with 
the population, partakes of the character of a 
civil as well as military institution. This ser- 
vice, comprising the youth and enthusiasm of 
the entire nation, is mostly, for the time being, 
the simple reflex of royal and official absolut- 
ism. On leaving the army, if no more lucra- 
tive occupation presents itself to the choice of 
the young soldier, derived from private means 
or family influence, he is accounted most de- 
serving who is most loyal ; every degree down- 
wards of subserviency standing for as many up- 
wards of promotion in the civil service of the 
state to which he is now attached. 

Except in the capital and a few large towns, 
the sentiment of political rights for the people 
does not deeply influence the national mind. 
The cultivation and laudation of freedom, in- 
deed, as a theme, is pursued with ardour at 
the universities principally. If the indulgence 



44 PRUSSIA. 

of a theory has not realized more tangible re- 
sults, it is, probably, that they are not required ; 
for among a people where there is no lack of 
employment, nor its due reward, settled laws 
justly administered, education encouraged, a 
religion of their own choice, and conscience un- 
constrained, the degree of political power which 
they may claim as a class is a matter not of 
indifference, but of less importance and of 
doubtful advantage. The people may, in this 
sense, have too much power to use it for their 
own good, as is invariably the case with demo- 
cracies. The highest results of civilization are 
found not in endowing with uniform power the 
masses, but with varied privileges the great co- 
ordinate classes of society. Political liberty 
implies with us the unlimited right of public 
meeting, free discussion by tongue and pen, 
representative institutions, parliamentary con- 
trol over taxation and the application of the 
finances of the state ; but not to every nation 



PRUSSIA. 45 

are these powers indispensable. And if with 
some the cultivation and exercise of the deeper 
capacities of our nature, philosophical habits of 
mind, the graceful studies and refined achieve- 
ments of art, have more of vital attraction than 
with ourselves, each may be considered to pos- 
sess equal advantages. 

With a government of autocratic origin and 
habits, supported by a highly conservative aris- 
tocracy, in favour of alliance and assimilation 
to Eussia, rather than any more westward 
Power ; and with a bureaucratic administration, 
— which, as every institution has a better and a 
worse side, may be said to signify in the latter 
sense the popular element in a state of social 
subornation and political perjury, constrained 
to bear witness in favour of superior authority, — 
territorial influence may be expected to pre- 
dominate, as it does, even in many properly 
public proceedings, and forming naturally the 
great reserve of the arbitrary authority of the 



46 PRUSSIA. 

Crown. A considerable enlargement, never- 
theless, in late years, of civil liberties has been 
fairly won by the people, in the mincls of whose 
leaders and teachers England and her institu- 
tions are the great and guiding exemplar. As 
a national consequence, the forms of a consti- 
tutional monarchy, and the establishment of an 
Upper and Lower House, have given Prussia a 
pre-eminence as the head and patron of free dis- 
cussion, political as well as philosophical, which 
men of liberal views in all countries are natu- 
rally inclined to approve ; and from which it is 
hoped the principle of the adoption of repre- 
sentative institutions is destined to attain a 
wider range than it has yet done on the con- 
tinent of Europe. 

With all this, whether as a corollary from 
foregoing conditions, or as a characteristic of 
pure Teutonic mind, the most remarkable fea- 
tures of Prussian policy, as apparent in its ex- 
ternal relations, are inconsistency and indeci- 



PRUSSIA. 47 

sion. When any question requiring co-opera- 
tive solution is submitted to the consideration 
of her government, while others are prompt 
and energetic, authoritative or obstinate, 
Prussia is for the most part vacillatory. Not 
to go back to any remote period, it is sufficient 
to refer to her conduct in relation to France, 
from the anti-republican manifesto of Pilnitz, in 
1791, to her projected invasion of that country 
in 1793, in which a retreat was the only thing 
accomplished ; to her acceptance, in 1794, of a 
British subsidy in support of war ; to the treaty 
of Basle, the year following, by which she 
as treacherously secured the advantages of 
peace ; to her subsequent adhesion to the north- 
ern maritime confederacy and attack upon 
British interests^ at the moment that Power 
was making sacrifices and exceptions in her 
favour ; her invasion of Hanover in compliance 
with the arrogant demands of France in 1806 ; 
her rupture immediately afterwards with that 



48 PKUSSIA. 

Power, and her renewed subservience, after 
defeat, to Napoleon, as manifested in the tole- 
ration of the Berlin decrees and in the treaty 
of Tilsit ; her support of the Eussian invasion 
in 1812 ; and, finally, in 1813, the initiation by 
the Prussian government of that great alliance 
against the despot her own vacillation and ser- 
vility had contributed so grossly to aggrandise. 
Internally her conduct has been almost 
equally inconsistent, though due allowance 
must always be conceded to the ill-directed 
and extravagant course of popular illusion and 
national ambition, as may be noted in her 
when, after passing through a period of pure 
autocracy, the reactionary effect of the first 
French Eevolution, as a member of the Holy 
Alliance and one of the great despotic triad of 
the North, in 1846 she was seized with the 
natural desire for constitutional institutions; 
her tendencies being rationally developed 
among all classes, and honourably encouraged 



PRUSSIA. 49 

by the king, when the unhappy outbreak of 
the French introduced also into Prussia a 
degree of democratic violence and unjust as- 
sumption on the part of both sovereign and 
people which, at first directed unitedly against 
other and external objects, ultimately, as 
might be expected, issued in a collision be- 
tween themselves. In this struggle the sove- 
reign having succeeded, though only by open 
duplicity, in securing the safety of those social 
institutions which all classes are interested in 
preserving, at any cost, against the onslaught 
of turbulent and momentarily demented my- 
riads, subsequent reflection induced the former, 
fortified by the support of the more judicious 
section of his subjects, himself to abandon, and 
suppress in others as far as he could, those wild 
and lawless schemes of absorption and annexa- 
tion which formed so long the day-dreams of 
dyspeptic editors, and the mental cloudland of 
so many beardless patriots. Ultimately, it is 



50 PRUSSIA. 

gratifying to find that the sober and practical 
attractions of a limited constitutional monarchy 
have proved sufficient to secure the political 
devotion of the citizens, and preclude the pro- 
spect, each successively threatening, and both 
alike to be dreaded, of a return to anarchy or 
to absolutism. 

In 1854-55, and during the whole of the 
negotiations previous to the war in the Crimea, 
as well as in the actual hostilities, Prussia held 
aloof with Austria both from Eussia and the 
Allies, apparently bent upon embarrassing, 
rather than assisting, either party ; although, 
in this instance, being but remotely connected 
with the contest, its causes, and its conse-% 
quences, her motives for non-interference, 
coupled with dynastic alliance and the pacific 
predilections of the king, are sufficiently ob- 
vious. In 1859 she waited till Austria had 
lost her finest province before adopting any 
decisive measure ; and in 1860, on the ques- 



PRUSSIA. 51 

tion of Savoy, said nothing till it was too late. 
She then spoke out very emphatically. 

As it is frequently difficult, nevertheless, to 
decide whether reluctance to engage in hostili- 
ties, or even to adopt bold measures, arises 
from sluggishness or astuteness, the backward- 
ness of Prussia in the matter of the Italian war 
may be reasonably well accounted for on the 
principle, perfectly understood in Germany, 
which may be thus formulated: any positive 
loss to Austria is at least a negative gain to 
Prussia ; there being no possibility of the con- 
verse ever proving true. The latter, it was 
thus foreseen, would look with complacency on 
the loss by her rival of those possessions be- 
yond the Alps the absence of which tended to 
leave both upon terms of more equality. 

That there is reason to fear Prussia will 
almost always prove an unsafe or unreliable 
ally may be inferred from the fact that, while 
the tendency of her constitutionally inclined 

e2 



52 PRUSSIA. 

population is, of course, to the friendship 
and support of liberal governments, theories, 
and measures of administration foreign and 
domestic, her active advocacy or support of 
such is always liable to be paralysed, at marked 
political crises and doubtful contingencies of 
peace or war, by certain overwhelming exi- 
gencies in two most important quarters con- 
nected simply with territorial considerations. 
If Austria and Eussia at any juncture combine 
in an offensive attitude, Prussia must eventu- 
ally join them or remain neuter. "While these 
are at variance, she is comparatively free. 
But under no circumstances can Prussia afford 
to enter into actual hostilities with Eussia or 
with Austria unless one of these is her ally. 

Again, in regard to the Ehenish Provinces, 
her position, in the event of a war with France, 
is such as to necessitate naturally the utmost 
degree of anxiety. To these considerations 
may partly be ascribed her vacillating policy 



PRUSSIA. 53 

at different times. But the fact remains. 
Prussia is a variable star, and only nominally 
of the first magnitude. Her interests, however, 
are identical with those of Austria in pre- 
cluding the further insidious advances of Eussia 
towards the heart of Europe ; and since both 
powers have been relieved by the death of the 
late Czar from the oppressive tutelage of that- 
imperial head, a more dignified and inde- 
pendent course of action may not unreasonably 
be looked for. 

Identical also are the interests of all three 
on one vital point, viz., in repressing — however 
harsh it may appear to uninterested spectators. 
if such there be — any manifestation of Polish 
nationality. In fact, it is their equal and 
united interest so to balance and modify their 
treatment of that people that, under their re- 
spective governments, not one of them — neither 
Austrian Poland, Eussian Poland, nor Prussian 
Poland — may have greater reason than another 



54 PRUSSIA. 

to complain or to congratulate itself. Poland, 
therefore, although, as a nationality extinct, 
remains, among the Powers which divided it, 
the pivot of their peculiar international po- 
licy. 

The opinion has been entertained that the 
circumstance most to be regretted — since the 
division is irremediable — is the disproportion 
of the allotments ; for while Eussia has seized 
two-thirds of the territory, the remaining third 
only has been subdivided between Austria and 
Prussia ; and various reasons could doubtless 
be adduced why it might have been better 
had the proportions been reversed, or the dis- 
tribution been, at least, more equal. In favour 
of it, it can only be said that, in relation to the 
other states, the repressive power of Russia is 
of course proportionally greater ; and that, if 
the act were, as its promoters contended, for 
the advantage of the European system, agree- 
able to the peace and progress* of society and 



PRUSSIA. 55 

the more general security of order and civi- 
lization, the arrangement finally adopted is 
sufficiently capable of justification. 

Neither carelessly nor callously, the writer 
would remark, is this term justification used 
while speaking of the dismemberment of a 
once powerful and independent state ; but, in 
truth, the disordered condition of Poland, 
owing to the internal factions of its own mer- 
cenary, tyrannical aristocracy, and the dis- 
organization effected by the unjust interference 
of Charles XII., the baneful effects of which 
were palpable for more than half a century; 
added to the danger of French intervention, 
believed to be imminent by those Powers in 
more immediate contact with the royal repub- 
lic — a mass of political contradictions and 
anomalies — rendered England and the rest of 
Europe somewhat indifferent to its fate; 
assured, moreover, as the judicious statesmen 
of every country must have been, that, even 



56 PBUSSIA. 

were it parcelled out among its more potent 
neighbours, the condition of the great masses 
of the Polish people could not possibly be 
deteriorated by their incorporation with any 
regular government, however despotic, but, in 
all probability, be sensibly improved; and, 
conclusively, that since its fall appeared no 
less than inevitable, it were safer for all, in 
regard to future contingencies, that so formid- 
able a prize should be distributed among a 
plurality of competitors than permitted solely 
to aggrandize one. Thus a measure apparently 
and theoretically unjust proved to be prac- 
tically wise, and one in which both distant 
spectators and immediate actors were almost 
equally interested and benefited. For so long 
as Poland stood by its absurd constitution — in 
which the veto of a single noble, however treach- 
erous or mercenary might be his vote, sufficed to 
nullify the unanimous resolutions of successive 
senates — in which, too, by reason of its elec- 



PRussixi. 57 

tive sovereignty, the seat of regal faction and 
imperial intrigues, and while the inability of 
the law to provide for the succession during the 
life of the actual wearer of the crown secured 
a constantly recurring quantity of anarchy and 
corruption, its royal rivals and its vast and ill- 
regulated population rendered it to the rest 
of Europe a source of universal and perpetual 
peril. The further consideration that, while 
Poland remained even doubtfully an inde- 
pendent and united Power, there only lacked a 
crowned leader of military genius and ener- 
getic character, and the advent of a suitable 
opportunity, to jeopardize or embarrass, or, at 
all events, compel to a state of perpetual 
armed vigilance, the surrounding Governments, 
furnished, doubtless, another weighty and de- 
cisive argument for the tripartition ; while the 
distrust entertained by the Courts of Eussia and 
Austria in relation to the ambitious views and 
victorious arms of Prussia, in connexion with 



58 PRUSSIA. 

other causes recorded in history or only half 
concealed in private memoirs, amply account 
for the different proportions of the allotment. 
While, therefore, for the removal of this cause 
of general uneasiness to Europe, civilized society 
is paradoxically indebted to the rapacity of 
Kussia and Austria, it is not a little, perhaps, 
owing to the determination of the Prussian 
King to render his own state, by military 
organization and the extension of his domi- 
nions, a co-ordinate member of the first rank 
of continental monarchies. 

The Westphalian provinces, separated by a 
land-strait from the bulk of the kingdom and 
inhabited almost wholly by a Eoman Catholic 
population, form, from their heterogeneous 
character in position, race, and religion, emi- 
nently the weak point of Prussia ; for, in the 
event of any convulsion or considerable super- 
ficial change in the conditions of European 
society, while there is every probability that 



PRUSSIA. 59 

certain of the intermediate states would attach 
themselves, by the laws of social attraction, to 
the greater mass of their Protestant brethren 
near at hand, so, by the operation of similar 
causes, the inhabitants of these provinces have 
a tendency to gravitate politically in the direc- 
tion of the two most liberal Eoman Catholic 
Powers of the Continent. But, at the same 
time, it is a proof of shortsightedness on the 
part of agitators to encourage or embitter 
reflection upon such topics. Interest, more 
effectually than religion, teaches charity to the 
dominant majority; and there is little doubt 
that in this reciprocal subordination of Pro- 
testant to Eoman Catholic and Eoman Catholic 
to Protestant rulers, humanity and liberty are 
on the whole gainers. 

Distinguished by a loyal, enthusiastic, and 
concentrative population, even those outside 
her borders being actuated by what may be 
termed centripetal tendencies, it is in her rela- 



60 PRUSSIA. 

tions with the minor states of Germany that 
Prussia appears in her most interesting and im- 
portant aspect ; but with what degree of con- 
sistency or sincerity she has assumed the cham- 
pionship of Germanic nationality, Germanic 
unity, and constitutional liberty, has yet to be 
assayed; a deeper inquiry even may be pre- 
ferred to ascertain how far the principles of 
popular control, the practice of free assembly, 
and the enjoyment of unrestricted discussion, 
essential to the integrity of constitutional 
government, are compatible with the habits of 
a population taught to be soldiers before acquir- 
ing the rights of civil life, and what may be 
the value of these conditions when co-operative 
and when opposed, qualified by the antecedents 
of a state so long recognisable as a mere 
stratocracy. 

Having, however, by means of this assump- 
tion, and the preponderating influence accruing 
from her position in the Commercial Customs 



PRUSSIA. 61 

Union, as steward and dispenser of the revenues 
of divers petty States of the Confederation — a 
position which, with the Union itself, Austria, 
as might be anticipated, has always selfishly, 
stedfastly, and vainly opposed — acquired a 
commanding grasp over various political con- 
tingencies which, while awakening the fears of 
some, stimulate in a high degree the expectant 
patriotism of not only her own subjects, but a 
numerous clientele on all sides of her actual 
dominions, the intentions of our self-styled 
" Sword of Germany " at any future crisis may 
fairly be estimated by the supposed gravity, in 
any particular direction, of her interests. 

So long as Prussia was an aggressive Power in 
any other quarter than eastwards, it was the inter- 
est of western Europe generally, and England in 
especial, to support Austria, as in her resistance 
under Maria Theresa to the encroachments of 
the Prussian monarch, on account of his domi- 
nions being conterminous with those of Hanover, 



62 PRUSSIA. 

in the prosperity and independence of which 
England was, of course, vitally concerned. But 
of all the Powers of Europe, the one which, at 
the present moment, gives most unmistakable 
evidence of ambitious designs is Prussia ; and 
though the tendency of the territorial and aris- 
tocratic element of Prussian society is towards 
the adoption of an exclusive and self-isolating 
policy, yet the policy of annexation, or the 
unification of Germany, is witho*ut doubt more 
popular both in ministerial circles and in demo- 
cratic discourses. The result in such case 
would be that Prussia would have, as it is 
wished, a more compact domain and a more 
decided policy ; no longer " halting betwixt 
two opinions," a character so singularly sym- 
bolised by her territorial configuration; and 
perhaps an absolutism more defensible because 
possibly necessary. 



GERMANY 



AND 



SCANDINAVIA. 



GERMANY 

AND 

SCANDINAVIA. 



Scattered like the asteroids between the 
orbits of Mars and Jupiter, lie, betwixt the 
borders of France and those larger and ulterior 
bodies of our political system situated in the 
northern and eastern quarters of Europe, the 
many irregular and fragmentary statelets of 
Germany. Manifold are their tendencies, their 
interests discordant, their characteristics con- 
flicting, no less than their apparent destinies. 

To enter into a minute estimate of these and 
their several bearings upon each other, in refer- 
ence to the greater states and to the general 

F 



66 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

scheme or figure of continental politics, is for- 
tunately not necessary for the general reader ; 
although, as regards German policy in its 
exclusive sense, it would be found as requisite 
to study them as for the mathematician to 
master the intervening text between any re- 
motely successive problems of Euclid. It will 
obviously be sufficient to suggest a few consider- 
ations connected with the present state of affairs 
to exhibit a specimen of the attractive compli- 
cations which beset the mind of the observer in 
noting accurately the curious configurations of 
German policy. 

The Germanic Confederation, of which all 
these states are sovereign members, was natur- 
ally disposed, politically intended to be, and 
still to a large extent undoubtedly is, a great 
central conservative Power, calculated to pre- 
serve the peace of Europe from, on the one 
hand, the outbreaks of democracy, and, on the 
other, from the inroads of despotism. This 



GEBMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 67 

laudable object the German people generally 
have pretty faithfully sought; and the states 
conjointly, in the constitution of their Diet, the 
apportionment of its functions, and the regula- 
tion of its powers, may be said to have secured 
the perfection of political conservatism. Un- 
happily, the tendency of all mortal perfection 
is to decline ; and with the advance of popular 
intelligence and the expansion of the sphere of 
public opinion, the legislative deficiencies of 
the Diet have become more apparent, and its 
executive authority less capable of enforcement, 
defiance or neglect of which among both the 
stronger and weaker members seems likely to 
become soon the sole symbol of unanimity. 

The question of the political hegemony of 
the Confederation, disputed between Austria and 
Prussia, or rather by their literary champions, 
chiefly at present in the speculations of the 
press or the declamations of university orators, 
and in which, as there is no possibility of agree- 

p2 



68 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

inent, all arguments have equal force, neverthe- 
less excites considerable interest in thoughtful 
minds, and enlists their sympathies accordingly 
as they are attracted by historical or pro- 
gressive associations ; for to this contested posi- 
tion Austria would naturally lay claim as the 
first of German and imperial Powers, and as 
hers by heirship of the ancient empire; but 
Prussia, from rivalry with Austria, by right of 
a younger strength, superior enlightenment and 
intelligence, and popular support. This ques- 
tion, which in its more practical bearing on the 
military leadership of the Confederation in 
time of war, occupies not unfrequently the field 
of constitutional discussion, the minor kingdoms 
and some less considerable principalities treat 
with a sagacious modesty which cannot be too 
much admired ; contending that, as they cannot 
presume to decide between such high pretensions 
as those put forward by the grand competitors 
before named, the right might more justly and 



GERMANY AXD SCAXDIXAYIA. 69 

without any suspicion of sinister designs be 
relegated to themselves, whose interests, as col- 
lectively the weaker party, whether considered 
in relation to a possible enemy, external or in- 
ternal, to the Confederation, are most vitally 
involved ; and the plea appears reasonable, but 
is no nearer adoption, it is to be feared, on that 
account. 

The present dualism, as it is called, of 
Germany, is regarded by some, those especially 
of the national Yerein party, as prejudicial 
to the honour and interests of the nation ; 
though it is somewhat difficult to an unexalted 
mind to discover in what the detriment consists. 
Others would be content with merely enlarging 
the boundaries of the two great primary Powers 
by the aggregation to each respectively of a 
number of lesser states, so as to divide the 
whole Teutonic territory into a Northern and 
Southern Germany ; but when it is considered 
that the population of many of these minor 



70 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

states, naturally intelligent and inclined to 
intellectual studies, refined by the influence of 
education and the arts, distinguished by simple 
habits and domestic virtues, with few burdens 
and fewer responsibilities, are amongst the 
best-conducted and happiest in Europe or the 
world, the benefit to be derived from the pro- 
jected disarrangement of the present order of 
things appears to be at least highly proble- 
matical. 

The honour of a country, it may be con- 
ceded, if not of a material, is far from being 
of an insubstantial or unimportant character; 
and it is really found that one at least of the 
principal grievances which the small states 
have to complain of under the actual system 
is that, in consequence of the inertness and 
incapacity of the Diet to assert its authority, 
their subjects are unable in foreign countries 
or at sea to vindicate their dignity when 
insulted, or when injured to obtain redress. 



GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 71 

An emigrant from Schwartzburg-Bodolstadt in 
the aqueous wilds of Paraguay, or a scientific 
traveller from Kniphausen among the saline 
sands of Independent Tartary, may be robbed 
or maltreated, it is urged, with impunity, 
while neither the empire of Austria nor the 
kingdom of Prussia will man a paltry squadron 
or levy one battalion in his behalf. Such 
sweeping conclusions drawn from palpable 
and only possible exceptions it is unnecessary 
to combat : but the idea of an united Germany 
and a national flag appears to have taken root 
in the mind of the nation ; and one thing is 
certain, that it is vain to contend against the 
general tendencies of the times, whether for 
good or for evil, either in social or political 
matters. 

The great question indeed of the future, 
upon which, as usual, enthusiasm is universal, 
but judgment inexact, is that of the reconsoli- 
dation, under more popular conditions, of a 



72 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

German empire. Although this is manifestly 
a project of that doubtful nature that, while it 
might by bare possibility be achieved by 
peaceful means, such as would be implied in 
the dissolution by the Diet of its own authority, 
and the re-election on a more popular basis of a 
common parliament at Frankfort or elsewhere, 
which should not be devoted exclusively to 
the consideration of petty dynastic interests, 
but the broad measures of national utility, and 
the general improvement of society in its most 
important aspects, yet it might on the other 
hand require or occasion a convulsion similar 
to that experienced by Europe at the close of 
the last and commencement of the present 
century. Were it only a question of the sword, 
the settlement might be simple enough in 
nature, though in all probability more cruelly 
protracted in the process of solution than may 
be anticipated. But the inquiry naturally 
emerges, of what advantage would such a 



GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 73 

change be to European interests generally, or to 
Germany and the German people themselves ? 
And here, taking the hypothesis of a third 
independent Power, the difficulties in which 
the subject is involved, though sensible only 
at the present moment to a deliberative judg- 
ment, would at the most unhappy and unthought- 
of junctures, infallibly obtrude themselves. It 
is undoubtedly the right and the duty of a 
people to constitute itself under such conditions 
as to secure peace, prosperity, and safety at 
home, and respect abroad. Setting aside, there- 
fore, as irrelevant, the dissatisfaction with which 
France who forcibly dissolved the former 
empire, and Eussia who selfishly sanctioned 
the fact, would naturally regard the foundation 
of another, and the introduction of a new 
Power into Europe, while the consent of 
England might be fairly assumed as probable, 
there is no question but that from its nearest 
neighbours, and its national kindred in the 



74 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

first degree, that is from both Austria and 
Prussia, it would be met with a decided and 
strenuous opposition. But if, in spite of those 
troubles in Hungary and in Poland which 
might at such a crisis be safely calculated upon, 
the project as a whole, and in its main object, 
were to miscarry and end in a double partition 
between Austria and Prussia, as appears the 
most probable issue of the plan, then the 
dualism already alluded to would be perma- 
nently and in all likelihood beneficially esta- 
blished. Beneficially, of course, supposing the 
maintenance and growth in each dominion of 
representative institutions and responsible go- 
vernments, not to speak of prudent parlia- 
ments. For, how imprudently a representative 
assembly, popularly elected, can act, and 
honestly, as it were, betray the people who 
delegated them, is notably evident in the 
elevation by the Frankfort Parliament in 1849 
of an Austrian Archduke, though believed to 



GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 75 

be liberally inclined, as the administrator of 
the embryo empire then in contemplation. 
A more directly suicidal step was never taken 
by even a democratic congress. The jealousy 
of Prussia and the contempt of the country 
insured its downfall. 

Throughout this cluster of states, traversed 
from one point to the other, and to opposite 
extremes, by Gallic antipathies and democratic 
sympathies, by the hopes and fears of a pro- 
gressive society, by the sense of insecurity 
inseparable to the possession of power from all 
innovation however reasonable or imperative ; 
and the frequent antagonism arising from con- 
stitutional inclinations on the part of the people 
to the somewhat despotic predilections of the 
ruling powers, encouraged occasionally, if not 
originally instigated, by foreign corruption 
through the medium of family and other 
influences ; the diverse religious prejudices of 
various states, and their voluntary or com- 



76 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

pulsory toleration of each other's peculiarities, 
— these form a sample of those important 
questions which agitate or concentrate the 
public mind, which in the flow and reflow of 
popular opinion can only be viewed as in- 
dicative of a transitionary or preparatory state, 
the probable results of which it is not easy to 
define nor desirable to attempt. 

As at present constituted, the weight of Ger- 
many is thrown into the scale of Conservatism ; 
and with the example of France before her, 
and her own long-extended historical recollec- 
tions, and with the perils of Panslavism and the 
contingent perturbations of a resuscitated Po- 
land, and an ignorant, hostile, or selfish Sclave 
population on all sides of her, it is difficult to 
wish it otherwise. That the Germans, as a 
people, are desirous and deserving of a greater 
amount of political liberty, freedom of speech, 
freedom of the press, freedom of action in state 
affairs, than they at present enjoy, is certain ; 



GEEMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 77 

nor is there any recklessness or ferocity or 
fanaticism in their character in any such degree 
as to suggest the fear that the innovations they 
contemplate would be attended with conse- 
quences fatal to others or prejudicial to them- 
selves. It is greatly to be hoped that the 
views of extreme democratic parties may not 
be allowed to prevail; and that if possible — 
former failure notwithstanding — the existing 
machinery of legislation connected with the 
functions of the Diet should be utilized ; that 
the overwhelming and antagonistic influence 
of Austria and Prussia should be altogether 
removed from the Confederation; that a uni- 
form principle of popular franchise and repre- 
sentation should be adopted, as well as of 
customs, taxes, rates, tolls, and other objects 
of fiscal regulation, in addition to the rights 
of independency secured to each state, and in 
analogy with the proportions of military obliga- 
tion and organization already established by 
the central authority. 



78 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA, 

With these and other similar conditions it 
might be possible to effect the unification of 
Germany, considered as comprising the minor 
states distinguished from the two larger ones. 
A division even between these, though neces- 
sarily extending, in some measure, and inten- 
sifying the existing antagonism between them, 
might possibly prove beneficial or satisfactory 
on the whole, as securing to each individual 
Teuton, within their respective territories, a 
share, however atomic, in the rights and digni- 
ties of a powerful Fatherland. And such is ap- 
parently the tendency of popular opinion, that 
Dualism promises to be the destiny of Germany. 
In its present subdivided state, a discriminating 
glance at some of the more notable, though 
minor, members of the Confederation, their 
characteristics, position, and interests, may be 
not useless in the attempt to form a brief and 
rapid estimate of the internal policy of the 
Teutonic Governments. 

Hanover, it is obvious, occupies, with regard 



GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 79 

to Prussia, a peculiar and perilous position. 
In this respect the policy of Prussia was for- 
merly — i. e. before the separation of Hanover 
from the British Crown — of more apparent im- 
portance in a territorial point of view to Eng- 
land than at present; and though it is not 
impossible that in any case of peril occurring 
to Hanover, in connexion with its neighbours, 
from external sources, a regard to ancient 
connexions and the obligations of treaties — 
which, it is needless to add, are constructed in 
express terms to endure for ever — might induce 
Great Britain to interpose in its favour, either 
by arms or diplomacy, yet it is certain that 
among our own statesmen a growing indiffer- 
ence to Hanoverian difficulties may be noted, 
arising from the arbitrary and reactionary 
tendencies of its government, too often in 
direct opposition to the wishes and require- 
ments of an educated and enlightened popu- 
lation; which in this state and in certain 



80 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

neighbouring duchies feel, it is suspected, a 
somewhat dangerous confidence in the future 
liberality of Prussia. Yet it must be confessed 
that the repulsion which the Hanoverian 
Government, supported by a very considerable 
party, feels towards Prussia and the ambitious 
views entertained by that Power, is readily to 
be conceived and only natural ; for in the his- 
tory of the world there are but few independent 
states who have chosen to play the part of 
voluntary victims for the good of others, espe- 
cially their inferiors in position. The domi- 
nions of Hanover, with its maritime advantages, 
and other independent territories, intervening 
between the provinces of Westphalia and those 
of Prussia proper, give rise, it is clear, in the 
minds of Prussian statesmen, to a great tempta- 
tion, which in these days, when subjects vote 
away their kings with as little ceremony as 
formerly kings disposed of their subjects, might 
present, probably, no very astounding obstacle 



GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 81 

to a Government accustomed to play a leading- 
part in popular elections, and give due and 
imposing effect to democratic demonstrations ; 
but to impartial observers of such a movement 
it would appear most unwise should the popu- 
lation so transferring themselves, in obedience 
to a clamour for theoretic unity, neglect 
very scrupulously to exact, from a Government 
thus increasing its territory and power, efficient 
guarantees for the parallel extension of civil 
liberties. Otherwise, indeed — and in the excite- 
ment attending national crises such things are 
frequently lost sight of — but little might be 
gained for which the friends of freedom would 
have reason to rejoice. This expectant attitude, 
however, to which allusion has just been made, 
on the part of various minor states, Prussia — 
whose future it is more easy to conceive than 
safe to foretell — naturally encourages; and it 
is an attitude of which other more strictly 
constitutional states, whose position is better 

G 



82 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

secured, or thought so to be, might more freely 
and hopefully approve, could any firm reliance 
be placed upon the validity of institutions nomi- 
nally asserting the principle of popular control 
over the Government in a state so situated as 
is Prussia in respect to her outward relations ; 
and where, within, the entire population being 
compulsory conscripts, the one grand reality of 
the social system is the army. But the required 
security is felt to be wanting. 

Bavaria, principally Roman Catholic, from 
proximity of position, royal alliances, trading, 
and other interests, mostly follows the lead of 
Austria. Though nominally a constitutional 
monarchy, its political action is so checked 
and overruled by the Diet that the wholesome 
inclinations of the people are in a great degree 
nullified. 

Saxony — Lutheran Protestant as regards the 
majority of the population, but the reigning 
family, the original protectors of Luther, now 



&EBMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 83 

Eoman Catholic — is theoretically a democratic 
state in the shape of a constitutional monarchy, 
but practically a bureaucracy in the hands of 
the sovereign ; while the democratic party, 
therefore, sympathises mostly with Prussia, the 
party of independence, headed by royalty, in- 
clines towards Austrian policy. 

Wirtemburg — also for the most part Eoman 
Catholic, and a constitutional state — adopts a 
policy more independent in some respects than 
the other minor monarchies ; and its king may 
be considered as the head of that party, gra- 
dually assuming more importance, composed 
for the purpose of asserting the dignity of these 
greater mediocrities of the Germanic system ; 
and this course is doubtless partly traceable to 
the position of Wirtemburg with regard to her 
western neighbour. 

The Duchy of Baden has Chambers, and is, 
nominally at least, a constitutional state. The 
Duchies of Brunswick identify their interests 

g2 



54 GERMANT AND SCANDINAVIA. 

with those of Hanover. To the Mecklenburgs 
Prussia has a reversionary claim. To the same 
power the Duke of Saxe Coburg has, with a 
sublime confidence, intrusted the entire con- 
trol of the military forces of his state, in such 
a manner as to induce the belief that that 
measure implies a prejudgment on his part, at 
least, of the military leadership of Germany 
before referred to. 

The question of a fleet to an inland people, 
like most of the members of the Germanic 
Confederation, would appear at the first glance 
to be of singularly small importance, or even 
of remote probability of occurrence; but, as 
recently the National Unionists have laid the 
foundations of a navy by improvising a flag, 
and commenced in earnest a penny subscrip- 
tion for a military marine, consisting, or to 
consist, of a hundred gunboats or more, which 
are destined to immortalise the maritime re- 
nown of the miner and the mountaineer in 



Germany and scandinavia. 85 

Saxony, Wirtemburg, and a number of petty 
principalities which Nature has sedulously 
, secluded from all idea of the sea, it is not im- 
probable that the shallow ports of the Southern 
Baltic may shortly witness, under the com- 
mand of Prussian and pro-Prussian admirals, a 
respectable and efficient flotilla, the employ- 
ment of which supplies, at least, another fore- 
gone conclusion as to the naval leadership of 
Germany. 

The dispute involved in the relations of 
Germany through Holstein with Denmark is 
peculiar and important, not only in the bear- 
ings indicated, but through a much wider 
range. Though asserted to be a simple ques- 
tion by ex-amnestied writers of high revolu- 
tionary rank, who, like the Magyars, with os- 
tentatious inconsistency, are always appealing 
to ancient authority, and always endeavouring 
to overthrow it, there is, probably, no matter 
of political debate which precipitates in its 



86 GEKMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

train so many and considerable interests con- 
nected with the equilibrium of rival states, 
the laws of nations, the rights of races, their 
fears and aspirations. 

This duchy and its half-sister, the most im- 
portant fraction of the Danish dominions in 
Europe, was from 1848 to '51 the scene of a 
civil war instigated by the National party in 
Germany, and, of course, the Prussian Govern- 
ment — who, with its king and people, unwisely 
and criminally consented to render themselves 
the organ and exponent of that movement. 
But though the German Parliament and the 
Prussian people showed neither reluctance in 
inciting rebellion, nor hesitation in attacking 
the gigantic power of Denmark, yet at this mo- 
ment Kussia interfered with a forbidding and 
somewhat disquieting attitude, warranted, as 
she asserts, by the contingent succession of 
the Czars to the dukedom of Holstein — an 
assertion which is, unfortunately, too true. 



GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. Of 

Prussia and Germany are naturally in want of 
a deep-sea harbour, which is to be found at 
Kiel. Eussia would not let the shadow of a 
chance slip by, which might give her a station 
on the German Ocean. Austria sent troops to 
the support of the King of Denmark, and as 
earnest of opposition to the ambitious policy of 
Prussia. Sweden is interested in confining 
Russia to the ports of the Baltic ; and it was 
doubtless in the face of possible complications 
of the most serious character that Prussia 
finally retreated, not without military discom- 
fiture, from the Holstein contest. It is urged 
by the National Unionists that, were the Duchies, 
or even Holstein only, incorporated with Ger- 
many, the strongest possible bar would thus be 
presented to the hostile advance of Eussia ; but 
the peculiar position of the Danish possessions 
is such that, unless Europe is prepared remorse- 
lessly to sacrifice Denmark as an entirety, 
she must be permitted to hold as her own 



OO GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

the whole of the peninsula and islands of 
which her states are composed. Higher con- 
siderations, as they may be justly deemed in a 
certain sense, those of race, religion, and lan- 
guage, have occasionally, in all ages of the 
world, but righteously and beneficially, been 
made to yield to the more imperious obliga- 
tions of natural position. And if the German 
nation, whether in its present merely federal 
form, or in that of the hoped-for Germany of 
the future, honourably and disinterestedly advo- 
cate the principles which they profess, and 
which surely imply those of good policy and 
humanity, it is certain they could, under even 
the untoward circumstances alluded to, as a 
friendly Power, afford equal support to that 
which they boast of being able to furnish were 
the disputed provinces in their actual possession. 
In the mean time, as the moral influence of 
Germany alone must be amply sufficient to 
ensure the good government of the Duchies, 



GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. Oy 

as far as that can be achieved by the almost 
complete autonomy to which the Crown and 
Legislature of the rest of the Danish dominions 
have consented, the strife which has so long 
subsisted might, it is evident, be effectually 
closed by the adoption of that judicious pro- 
posal understood to have emanated from the 
British Cabinet, by which the semi-sovereign 
condition of the Duchies in their legislative 
and administrative capacities should be secured 
on the condition of their renunciation of their 
" vote and interest " in the Germanic Con- 
federation. By this they would be naturally 
freed from their present liability to Prussian 
influence ; and, one cause of perpetual mis- 
understanding removed, the pretensions of 
Prussia to interfere in the domestic concerns 
of her neighbour must be supported, if at all, 
simply by open force. Of all the minor but 
independent states in her vicinity, none has 
more reason to look with distrust upon that 



yU GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

ambitious member of the sovereign brotherhood 
of European States than Denmark. 

Some ardent theorists, of more comprehen- 
sive views than those which usually form the 
subject of speculation to practical men, and 
who love to look forward to a period when a 
redistribution of territory throughout Europe 
should be effected on principles very different 
in the main from those which have hitherto 
prevailed, have conceived, as a solution of the 
pending difficulties between Germany and Den- 
mark, the adoption, as a boundary between the 
two populations, of the river Eider, the ancient 
limit of the empire of the Eomans and of 
Charlemagne, and whereabouts the Teutonic 
language ceases to be spoken in unmixed 
purity ; and the ultimate reunion of Denmark 
with the other Scandinavian crowns. By this 
arrangement the command of the Baltic would 
justly pertain to the race most interested in its 
preservation ; and Germany and England, clif- 



GEKMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 91 

fering from, but not opposed to, each other or to 
Scandinavia, would constitute a powerful league 
mutually protecting and protected, yet never 
more than sufficiently so, against their common 
rivals. This league may be said to exist 
virtually, if it be not recognised; the prin- 
ciples of their social and political organization, 
their laws, the analogies of their language, the 
affinities of race prove it ; their traditions and 
their aspirations secure it. 

Every nation has undoubtedly been guilty, 
in the course of its career, of some fatal pre- 
sumption or inconsistency of conduct, for which 
it has dearly paid ; and of this truth there can 
be no more striking illustration than the 
punishment inflicted upon Denmark for its 
desertion of the cause of the Sea-Kings, in the 
attempt made by Gallic ambition to dispute 
the maritime supremacy of this country; the 
peculiar interest by which, in a material point 
of view, the Powers of the North are advan- 



92 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

tageously and naturally united. For a Scandi- 
navian nation, whose most cherished traditions 
are "of the brine, briny," to combine with 
Sclave, or Gaul, or Teuton, against that free 
supremacy of the seas established and repre- 
sented by the British flag, was a political 
solecism which providentially brought upon 
itself an early and enlightening chastisement. 
The peculiar lesson implied in those events 
alluded to — that, though Britain needs not 
their assistance, she looks for that practical 
respect from secondary maritime Powers which 
ensures at least their amicable eloignment 
from contests in which they are unable to 
act decisively — will probably not require 
to be repeated in that or any neighbour- 
ing quarter. That France or Germany should 
seek their alliance is only natural; and that 
they should accept an offer for mutual defence 
amongst themselves, and against the common 
object of their precautions, is just ; for the 



GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 93 

superiority of one or other on land, and the 
value of the maritime forces at their command, 
in various possible complications, involving the 
designs of Eussia or parts of Germany, is per- 
fectly manifest : and since the integral territory 
of Norway and Sweden is now guaranteed by 
both France and England as against Eussia, the 
most prudent course that Denmark could pos- 
sibly adopt, for the security of her own en- 
tirety, would be the intimate and absolute 
alliance with France, however distasteful it 
might prove, for opposite reasons, both to Ger- 
many and Eussia. 

It is not often, it may be added, that in the 
views of superficial statesmen, or even those 
generally worthy of a better name, the political 
interests of France and England assume an 
aspect of patent and paramount identity; but 
in relation to one eventuality before adverted 
to, such may be said to be the case. To pre- 
vent Eussia obtaining a footing in the Sound, 



94 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

by which means her navies might overawe the 
Northern Germanic countries, and intercept, 
threaten, or compete with the commerce of the 
world in that quarter, and especially of Great 
Britain and France, must ever be a matter of 
vital importance to the ruling authorities of 
those countries. In the face, therefore, of the 
insignificant resources of Denmark to resist a 
hostile attack from Russia, the treaty to which 
a few years ago each of those Powers was a 
party, wherein the claims of the Eussian 
dynasty to the Holstein succession were formally 
recognised, may be looked upon, if not of ques- 
tionable validity, as an ill-judged measure ; not 
the less objectionable because the adverse con- 
sequences apprehended from it may appear to 
be remote. 

Of the internal constitution of these king- 
doms but little need be said. In Denmark, 
independent of the Holstein question — which 
the Danes now threaten to settle with their 



GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 95 

own hand, and the expungement of which, 
whenever it occurs, will be a public blessing for 
which the human race ought to unite in voting 
some substantial testimonial of gratitude — its 
domestic policy, whether in the hands of a Kott- 
witz or a Madwig, is neither of a very hopeful 
nor exciting nature. It is just constitutional 
enough to ensure that mediocrity of progress 
which is generally safe, if never entirely satis- 
factory ; and as to Eoyal authority, if the fact 
of every tenth man being a public official ap- 
pointed by the Crown, be any proof of what is 
meant by a strong government, Denmark 
might, indeed, afford a brilliant and encourag- 
ing example to all nations in search of that 
fugacious boon. 

That Sweden and Norway — " a little more 
than kin, and less than kind " — are too nearly 
related to permit of actual union, would ap- 
pear, from the failure of all efforts in that 
direction, to afford a singular instance of 



96 GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 

that wise disposition of nature which pre- 
cludes the stagnation of society and its con- 
sequent degradation in these cold and conges- 
tive regions of the world, where, if neighbour- 
ing people did not quarrel, they might, having 
nothing else to do, possibly die of inaction. 
Nature and Fortune have, therefore, it may be 
supposed, provided a number of anomalies suf- 
ficient to keep alive that amount of discontent 
necessary to vital movement in a people, how- 
ever slow ; inasmuch as, in addition to a re- 
actionary legislature, presided over by a revolu- 
tionary dynasty, the peculiarity of the Swedish 
constitution is that, while nominally liberal, 
it is actually conservative to an unjust, and 
therefore unsafe, degree. For, although it 
embraces a system of representation, yet in 
consequence of this being effected by means of 
social classes strongly, or rather violently, de- 
marked from each other, a proper fusion is 
thereby prohibited of the political elements of 



GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA. 97 

national life ; and the true result of constitu- 
tional government being wanting, the weight 
of legislative power tends towards the greater 
numerical force embodied in the stationary 
sections of the clergy and the landed pro- 
p rietary. 



RUSSIA. 



h2 



RUSSIA. 



Russia, the representative of the Scythia and 
Sarmatia of antiquity, the type of irresponsible 
power, the symbol and significator of material 
despotism, is naturally distinguished by a policy 
selfish and saturnine, and in its application all 
but monotonously successful. 

It has been a matter of wonder to some that 
for so long a time the schism between the 
Greek Catholic and Eoman Catholic Churches 
has been permitted to endure ; and until the 
commencement of the eighteenth century rea- 
sonable hopes were entertained on the part of 
pious doctors of the Western communion that 
offensive differences might be eliminated, and a 



102 RUSSIA. 

salutary union between the spiritual rivals 
effected. But after the adoption of the head- 
ship of the Eusso-Greek Church into his secular 
sovereignty by Peter the Great, those hopes 
vanished. It is now the object and interest of 
Eussia to maintain and widen the schism, for 
as, in matters of faith, a spiritual sovereignty if 
at issue with a secular one would necessarily to a 
piously disposed mind appear invested with supe- 
rior sanction, — the opposing authority, though 
never so haughty and potent in its civil aspect, 
w r ould beyond doubt proportionately suffer in 
point of prestige. All chance of this state of 
things being now nullified by the union of the 
spiritual and secular authority in the Imperial 
Crown, the infallibility of a Pope is at once 
protected and practically enforced by the omni- 
potence of the Emperor. 

As solemnity adds dignity to every act of 
State, and dignity is an essential attribute of 
power, it has been the invariable custom of 



RUSSIA. 103 

Russia — in all her diplomatic dealings with the 
states of the Continent, as well as by her own 
official and, as occasion serves, non-recognized 
interference with European populations, those 
especially of Sclavonic or Eoumaic race — to 
sanctify all political projects, whatever their 
motive or purport, by an appeal to the superior 
independence of the Greek Catholic Church ; in 
which, apart from the authority of the Emperor, 
no power exists capable of modifying to the 
extent of a hair's breadth the bases of faith as 
already and of old established ; and at the same 
lime of putting forward the Imperial Govern- 
ment as the invincible champion of the freedom 
and purity of orthodox Christianity. 

That in these pretensions is a certain amount 
of sincerity — for in proportion as men are igno- 
rant they are undoubtedly sincere — and in their 
maintenance a certain degree of good, must be 
conceded ; the latter, because it may be taken 



104 RUSSIA. 

as an axiom that the predominance of priestly 
power is more prejudicial to human progress, 
whether considered socially or intellectually, 
than any political despotism the world has 
known ; and that there are limits in subserviency 
beyond which the most arbitrary governments 
do not wish to trespass ; and the former, because 
they have been systematically asserted under 
the test of powerful hostility and severe humi- 
liation. 

But as regards those countries among whose 
populations the championship of a particular 
form of Christianity would constitute no claim 
to admiration or veneration, but rather the 
reverse, Russia very cautiously abstains from 
obtruding upon Turk, Tahtar, or Chinese, the 
fanatical aspect of her adamantine character ; 
and, quite content with subduing, never dreams 
of converting enemies, who by adoption of 
Western creeds and habits of thought, might 



RUSSIA. 105 

speedily become inoculated with notions of 
Western liberty, and finally perhaps prove more 
dangerous as subjects than as foes. 

And this is a consistent and intelligible 
policy ; dictated first by a sense of the necessity 
of self-preservation, and ultimately adapted by 
a not unnatural expansion of principles to the 
furtherance of those schemes of aggression, 
which, resulting in the grandeur and predomi- 
nance of a particular people, certainly but in- 
directly contribute to national good, the en- 
hancement of its positive value and repute 
among the nations of the world. 

The primary policy of Eussia has therefore a 
religious front ; and this it is which gives gene- 
rally so much of dignity and weight to her in- 
fluence in Europe ; and partly because her 
religion is not of a missionary, argumentative, or 
combative character, in which there is frequently 
much of implied disadvantage, but avoiding 
controversy is simply affirmative, in the face of 



106 RUSSIA. 

all varieties of the Christian faith, of its own 
absolute truth and pre-eminent orthodoxy. 

And although it is at all times difficult to 
disentangle the political from those religious 
considerations by which her public conduct 
appears to be overtly or ostensibly at least de- 
termined, this becomes in the Eastern or Turkish 
question, both from the immense importance of 
the matter and the mystery in which it is in- 
volved, an almost utter impossibility. Constan- 
tinople itself, the queenly city which appears 
to dominate two continents, is not more at- 
tractive to the Imperial government from its 
commanding position, abundant resources, and 
luxurious environs, than to the humblest peasant 
of the salt and sterile steppe, from its being the 
sacred birthplace of the faith which he pro- 
fesses. Whatever, therefore, the motives by 
which the Government of the State may be 
actuated in its relations to Turkey directly, or 
its oblique relations with other Powers in refer- 



RUSSIA. 107 

ence to tlie Sultan's dominions, the religious 
element of Russian policy constitutes a basis 
which the most illiterate or obtuse intellect 
may appreciate; and illustrates that perfect 
identity of State and people, awful almost in its 
extent and simplicity, which subsists and ope- 
rates habitually within the bounds — if such a 
term be applicable — of that mighty empire. In 
that empire the unit is as the whole ; there is 
neither majority nor minority ; all movement 
is uniformal ; religion, race, and government, 
form as it were with their intersecting influences 
one circular system of centralized authority. 

Let the ultimate fate of Turkey be what it 
may, the policy of Russia in respect to the East 
must be held to have culminated in those mea- 
sures which led to the Crimean war ; but as it 
culminated it exploded. Upon the considera- 
tions connected with this fatally grand event, 
which has undoubtedly shaken and somewhat 
loosened in certain directions the system of 



108 



RUSSIA, 



Europe, it would be inexpedient on the present 
occasion to dilate. It began as all remember 
with an ecclesiastical wrangle about the posses- 
sion of the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. When 
these melancholy words were first whispered 
round among statesmen and diplomatists, there 
were but few even of those who assisted or 
presided in the chancelleries of their respective 
states to whom that ominous expression sug- 
gested that the key to another chamber of 
death which was about to number its inmates 
by thousands of thousands, situated beside the 
then secluded city of an inland sea, was soon to 
be unlocked by that ensanguined key, the sword, 
which has already opened to mankind the 
entrance of so many miseries. What began 
with a squabble between a handful of Greek 
and Latin monks, speedily developed itself as a 
contest between the three chief empires of the 
world. The ultimate object of the Eussian 
Autocrat was no secret ; and that object 



RUSSIA. 109 

France and Great Britain were naturally and 
by every motive of sound policy bound to 
defeat. 

So long as Eussia remains the great homo- 
geneous power she is, unequalled in quantity, 
unbroken in continuity, with an overpowering 
predominance in two continents, and consider- 
able territorial extension in a third, — held toge- 
ther as this dominion is, not by those slack 
and easily severable ties by which the colonial 
possessions of this country are attached to the 
British Crown, but in a strict and stern union, 
— it is only right and reasonable that the other 
leading Powers of Europe should do their 
utmost to preclude if possible all further ag- 
grandisement on her part in any quarter : much 
more, therefore, in her obtaining possession of 
a city which is itself the crown of the world, 
and which in her hands would give her the 
command of the Mediterranean, and in fact 
universal supremacy. 



110 RUSSIA. 

If one can only imagine her designs in Poland, 
Hungary, Servia, Bosnia, and elsewhere, even- 
tually realised, and herself firmly seated in 
the midst of faithful populations, with Constan- 
tinople for her southern and Petersburg her 
northern capital — her fleets sweeping the Baltic 
and the Mediterranean and the Northern Seas ; 
and her armies, by their number alone less 
formidable than by their servile devotion, along 
with that of the multitudinous people from whom 
they spring, to the irresponsible will of one 
man, over-lording the Sclavonic continent,' — it 
needs but little argument to justify in the minds 
of Western statesmen, of Keltic or Teutonic 
stock, any political combinations which may 
avail against the possibility of such calamities. 
Without indulging, as certain writers do, in 
the habit of holding up Eussia on all occasions 
and in all junctures as a gigantic hobgoblin to 
the rest of Europe, it is not unwise to contem- 
plate contingencies ; and it can do us no harm 



RUSSIA. Ill 

to bear in mind that a race which looks upon 
its chief as a god, and whose only social 
instincts, so far as manageable in masses, are 
war and religion, is a dangerous race to those 
addicted to the practice of the arts of peace, 
the study of philosophy and science, free specu- 
lation and inquiry, and belief in the beneficial 
efficacy of public opinion resulting from the 
unrestricted and amicable communion of a vast 
variety of classes ; and that while the unlimited 
progress of other European races is far from 
being fraught with danger to the liberties or 
the enlightened civilisation of other nations, 
that of Sclavonism as at present constituted is 
tantamount to the cultivation of an unitarian 
despotism hostile to human happiness. This 
despotism nevertheless the Sclavonic family are 
found fondly to favour, because although it 
somewhat reduces them as a people in point of 
political privileges, which they little regard, it 
exalts them as a race. 



112 * KUSSXA. 

But although Russian policy, as already 
stated, attained in the Mentschikoff negotia- 
tions its point of greatest elongation, and failed, 
yet, without dwelling any longer upon that 
event, it must be allowed that the same course, 
though in a less haughty attitude, is still pur- 
sued ; and appears calculated, unless met with 
perpetual opposition equally vigilant and 
strenuous, to be ultimately attended with per- 
manent, as it is even now with temporary, suc- 
cess. In this success is the evidence of a strik- 
ing peculiarity of Russian policy in relation 
especially to all the semi-civilised communities 
of the East. Other nations exert an influence 
undoubtedly more or less natural or justifiable, 
as the case may be, or as circumstances may 
require ; but Russian influence can only be 
described as pressure — on all sides incessantly 
accumulating pressure. 

If to these considerations, which justly arise 
in the mind from contemplating the situation 



RUSSIA. 113 

and social condition, the commercial interests 
and prospects, the capabilities and expectations 
natural and political, of these rich, important, 
and yet imperfectly developed regions, such 
as the Principalities, Bosnia, Servia, Eou- 
melia, and others which nominally pertain 
to Turkey, partially acknowledge her suze- 
rainty or rejoice in the assertion of an inde- 
pendence they are incapable of exercising, but 
the populations of which, from other motives, 
to which allusion has already been made, en- 
tertain more regard and openly affect more 
submission towards Eussia herself — we add the 
spell of her immense power, her active pro- 
tectorate of the common faith, her organized 
and recognized pecuniary retainership among 
the subjects of other states, we may not be 
surprised at the effect which the control of 
this powerful machinery, moral and physical 
is calculated and intended to produce, — namely, 
the disintegration of the Turkish Empire. We 



114 ItUSSIA. 

shall be compelled only to admit that nothing 
but the united efforts of the other great Powers, 
Great Britain and France combined, with some 
renewed vigour and vitality in its own internal 
system, can suffice to sustain it for even a 
moderate period. Should this resisting power 
be diminished or attenuated in any sensible 
degree by a misunderstanding between France 
and Great Britain, its downfall is certain. The 
solution of the Eastern question, indeed, simply 
signifies the dissolution of the Turkish Empire, 
primarily; and, secondly, the substitution of 
another " Power " in its place. If left to itself 
there is every reason to believe Turkey would 
soon die a natural death ; and the doubt hu- 
manely arises in the mind of a spectator whether 
a natural death be not preferable to an un- 
natural life. But supposing this to be so in 
ordinary cases, in this one many most potent and 
absorbing considerations, because inwoven with 
the strongest passions of humanity, the hopes 



RUSSIA. 115 

and fears of nations, induce, strangely enough, 
those most interested in the decease of the 
sufferer to struggle to prolong his life. 

There is no other European nation at pre- 
sent constituted, and of first rank, which would 
or could dream of occupying as its capital the 
city of the Sultan. But Eussia has set her 
heart upon it. On the other hand, except under 
the pressure of defeat which it seems impos- 
sible seriously to contemplate, to afford her 
that gratification would be little short of ab- 
solute insanity on the part of the nations of 
the West. It would be the abdication of a 
superior power in behalf of an inferior — inferior 
in all respects except that massive yet pointed 
unity of organisation, civil and military, proper 
to their race, and which has enabled them to 
act with such tremendous force hitherto in the 
affairs of the world. 

Eussia, it is said by some, on the contrary, 
is an advancing, improving Power. She only 

i2 



116 KUSSIA. 

lacks a more commanding sea-board, a more 
genial clime, a more direct intercourse with the 
civilising tendencies of the South— the sunny 
cestus of the globe, to secure the love and ad- 
miration of the human race, and to take her 
proper place at the head of universal progress, 
as the leader of religious order in the State, 
and the patroness of conservative piety in the 
Church; and that the substitution of her do- 
minion, or indeed of any other Christian Power, 
for the effete and barbarous sway of the Seraglio, 
(for that should be the diplomatic title of the 
Turkish Government rather than the Porte) 
with its thousands of unhappy victims, mascu- 
line and female, its unconscionable corruption 
and political profligacy, and its legalised system 
of extortion towards its own subjects, the ma- 
jority of whom are of course Christians — would 
be a blessing to the world. And much of 
this, so far as the assertion of the more gene- 
ral proposition extends, is indubitable ; but 



KUSSIA. 117 

that Eussia is that Power which the world 
wishes to see, or would be benefited by seeing, 
substituted for Turkey, is, indeed, more than 
doubtful. There are peculiarities observable in 
her character and constitution which forbid the 
voluntary entertainment by others for a single 
moment of such a project. Upon this Great 
Britain, France, and Austria are in sworn trine, 
or in absolute conjunction. 

Before dismissing this question, it is of course 
to be conceded that the perpetuation of the 
Ottoman power, if not by its own inherent 
vigour, at least by the antagonistic inclinations 
of others, and the opposing forces brought to 
bear at different angles by the various converg- 
ing interests of surrounding nations, may yet 
by bare possibility be secured in its own de- 
spite ; and in this respect, and this only, its 
maintenance may be considered as contributing, 
under the universal impartiality of Divine de- 
crees, to a more humane and liberal govern- 



118 



KUSSIA. 



ment of mankind than might take place, were 
such a position not fortunately occupied by an 
Eastern people, of Mohammedan profession 
and a fierce and fanatical disposition; their 
presence on the verge of a continent pro- 
fessing a religion practically patronising perse- 
cution and aggression on all other forms of 
faith, constituting a pledge for good behaviour, 
equally valid, it is obvious, in opposite direc- 
tions, and operative even to the very extremi- 
ties of the globe. 

To affirm, as the partizans of Eussia and 
some writers among ourselves have done, that 
the Turks have no right to be in Europe, be- 
cause they are Mohammedans, is virtually to 
assert one of two things : either that Christians 
only have a right to live where they please, and 
enjoy the fruits of their conquests ; or to admit 
that we have no right in Asia or elsewhere 
than in our own immediate quarter of the 
world. To fall back upon the superiority of 



RUSSIA. 119 

religion, race, enlightenment, art, science, or 
what not, is as unsatisfactory a process in dis- 
puting with Turks as kicking against thorns ; 
for these are the very points in debate, and 
involve the possible expansion of the prin- 
ciple and its application among ourselves to a 
fatal and even internecine degree. 

Still it is undoubtedly to be wished for the 
sake of the Christian population of those fine 
and fertile provinces constituting European 
Turkey, and who manifestly cannot sympathize 
intimately with the government, both severe 
and careless, under which they find themselves, 
that some solution of their political difficulties 
satisfactory to themselves, to Europe, and to 
that formidable Power whose protection is so 
oppressive, should yet be attained. If, there- 
fore, at any time it should happen (and in cer- 
tain circumstances it may be permissible to 
suppose a case — say, at the death of a Sultan) 
that the confusion of affairs social, political, and 



120 RUSSIA. 

perhaps financial, were such as to induce, in 
the face of divided councils or rival claimants 
to the succession, the Christian population of 
the metropolis and the surrounding districts, 
gradually perhaps embracing the whole of 
European Turkey, to rise in self-vindication of 
their natural independence, and, without blood- 
shed or unjustifiable outrage, render themselves 
lords of the crisis; and suppose this state of 
things effected by the joint efforts, where prac- 
ticable, of both denominations of Christians ; and 
measures taken judiciously and not improbably 
in concert with the ministers of Foreign Powers, 
for the permanent establishment, with popular 
consent, of a monarchical government, regularly 
organized, not too theoretical in its construction, 
nor impracticably liberal in the popular element 
of its constitution, guaranteed, it may be, ulti- 
mately by the collective protectorate as at pre- 
sent existing, — such an event, there is no doubt, 
would form the best and the only natural solu- 



RUSSIA. 121 

tion of the Eastern question. It would remove 
from Christendom the irritating anomaly of 
Moslem domination and the peril of a mighty 
and desolating contest always impending; it 
would introduce a sense of tranquillity, security, 
and dignity among the inhabitants, which has 
never been experienced by them during nearly 
half a millennium. In a material point of 
view it would lead to an immense expansion 
of the natural resources of that district, and 
which it principally requires now to render it 
one of the most prosperous in the world ; while 
as a State, from its variety of genealogical sub- 
divisions, it would operate as a check to Eussia 
politically ; and as a rival, ecclesiastically, with 
doubtless the best effect upon the religious 
sympathies of the entire Greek Catholic per- 
suasion, which is now left universally exposed 
to the designs of Eussia throughout the world, 
simply from the fact that she forms the only 
Power professing the same faith which occupies 



122 



RUSSIA. 



a dominant position among the nations of the 
earth. 

Whether such a movement as that just 
sketched by way of hypothesis were likely to 
extend itself to the neighbouring kingdom of 
Greece, and with what effect, it will of course 
be impossible to speak with certainty; but 
there is reason to suspect, from the late Czar's 
contemptuous expressions of opposition to any 
idea of the aggrandisement of that state, that 
such a result would be neither improbable nor 
unwelcome to the most considerable portion of 
the intelligent and wealthy classes of Eoumelia, 
Macedonia, Southern Thrace, and other im- 
portant regions. To all these populations the 
disadvantages of a state so small and compa- 
ratively unproductive as Greece are already 
sufficiently obvious ; while, on the other hand, 
as the basis of an organisation actually esta- 
blished, a settled government, a constitutional 
sovereignty, an army, a navy, an independent 



RUSSIA. 123 

commercial class, enjoying recognition in all 
the richest and most important countries of 
Europe, and practising negotiations with success 
in all departments of trade, present the prospect 
of too many and considerable benefits derivable 
from such an amalgamation to be altogether 
discarded as impracticable or impolitic by dis- 
interested well-wishers of a rising people, in 
deference to the selfish prejudices of a haughty 
and overreaching competitor. 

Such being the perils, attractions, and capa- 
bilities of the Oriental question in the abstract, 
to Eussia, many of which remain in full force, 
it may not be uninstructive, nor perhaps un- 
advisable, if we are to estimate rightly the 
grandeur of the arc of Eussian policy, to re- 
trace, briefly and rapidly as can be, the actual 
development of these conditions, in the position, 
and bearings upon each other, of the European 
Powers generally interested in this greatest of 
political problems. 



124 RUSSIA, 

The original complications of France, Bussia, 
and the Porte, as regards the matter of the 
shrines, the lighting of lamps, and the locking 
of doors, which ostensibly gave occasion to the 
subsequent unreasonable demands of the Bus- 
sian Emperor, having been disposed of by 
voluntary retractation on the part of the French 
Government, the reproach of originating the 
late calamitous war is justly laid at the door of 
the Bussian people, of whose territorial cupidity 
and fanatical ambition Nicholas was, both by 
position and sympathy, the exponent and the 
head. His foregone conclusions upon this point 
are clearly proved by his dramatic conversa- 
tions with Sir H. Seymour, and sufficiently 
known by what may be signified as his " deep- 
sea soundings " at a prior period. Distrusting 
any possible degree of integrity in the Turkish 
Government, and discouraging, from motives 
which it is needless to characterise, the slightest 
tendency to improvement, either of an ad- 



RUSSIA. 125 

ministrative or popular character, in the affairs 
of the State, and less accurately than ambi- 
tiously informed, it is to be feared, by his 
agents, of its political and commercial position, 
both advancing, the Emperor — who evidently 
considered it entirely from an enthusiastic 
point of view — believed that the last hour of 
" the sick man " had chimed ; and he was 
anxious to take advantage of the inevitable 
dissolution, as he conceived, of that State, be- 
fore any revolutionary projects could be brought 
to weigh, at such a juncture, upon the neces- 
sarily agitated condition of Europe, and to 
forestall the interference of any other Power at 
that probable crisis. 

But, as the world cannot be turned upside 
down in a corner, and as the destruction of a 
very considerable state must be attended with 
circumstances of some publicity, and as every 
sacrifice requires salt, his Imperial Majesty 
found it necessary to prepare in a certain de- 



126 RUSSIA. 

gree the minds of other governments for the 
great events which he intended to produce, 
but which he wished to be considered self- 
evolving. 

Proposals similar to those he had made per- 
sonally at our own Court in 1844, he had 
caused to be made or insinuated, between that 
period and 1852, to the French Cabinet ; but 
not finding them responded to in the manner 
he had anticipated, the Emperor appears to 
have thought less and less of the once wished- 
for concurrence of France, from that inca- 
pable and degraded state, the natural effect of 
unrestrained democracy, into which it was sup- 
posed to have been precipitated by the revo- 
lutionary outbreak of 1848, and the unsup- 
ported and despicable machinations of the 
preceding system of government. Believing, 
moreover, from the condition of affairs in Aus- 
tria, and the civil and pecuniary embarrass- 
ments of that state, which, by owing its national 



RUSSIA. 127 

preservation to his friendly suppression of 
the Hungarian rebellion, had become, by the 
consequent gratitude of its people — the ruling 
classes, at least — and the youth and inex- 
perience of its ruler, almost a dependency of 
Russia, or so far that he might with tolerable 
certainty calculate upon its non-interference 
with any schemes of liis own ; and that, in 
fact, as His Imperial Majesty failed not to re- 
mark, " What would suit him, would suit 
Austria ;" while Prussia, as if in anticipation of 
the minute and ignominious part to be taken 
by her throughout, he never once named, her 
interests as a then satellite of Eussia seeming 
altogether out of the lists, — it appeared clear to 
the mind of the Emperor that, by the con- 
nivance and with the complicity of England, 
to whom " the flesh-pots of Egypt " and Candia 
might serve as allurements, opposition from 
any other quarter would be perfectly nuga- 
tory. Of Greece, although so inconsiderable a 



128 RUSSIA. 

state as regards area, and generally an " acces- 
sory after the fact " to his own policy, whatever 
it might be, Nicholas seems to have enter- 
tained some jealousy — a jealousy not occa- 
sioned by any manifestations on the part of 
the Greek Cabinet — to him subservient enough, 
German enough, and only quasi-national in 
spirit itself — but by views w T hich might pos- 
sibly be advanced on behalf of the Queen of 
the South, in case of the disruption of the 
Ottoman Seignory, by the Western and more 
liberal Powers of the Continent, who had for- 
merly stood sponsors for the nascent nation of 
the iEgean — concerning which his suspicions 
might colourably arise from the relative tradi- 
tions possessed in common by Greece and Eus- 
sia and Byzantium with reference to the ortho- 
dox faith and the political domination of the 
East. Any event of this description, as was 
before intimated, tending to a counterbalance 
of Russian influence and protection in the 



RUSSIA. 129 

affairs of the Greek Catholic faith, he naturally 
deprecated and most earnestly desired to avoid. 
Emphatically, therefore, did the Emperor de- 
nounce, in any contingency whatever connected 
with the expected break-up of the Osmanli 
dominions, permission of the slightest political 
advantage or territorial aggrandisement to 
Greece. 

The juncture seemed favourable ; and, if 
his information had been correct, the Em- 
peror's reasoning, from the point of view uni- 
versally adopted by his people, was substan- 
tially justifiable ; for there can be no question 
that in such an eventuality as that contem- 
plated, the positive interests of Eussia sub- 
tend a palpably greater area than the nega- 
tive and always partially divergent interests 
of Great Britain and France. But these, if 
neither equal separately to the first, nor per- 
fectly equivalent between each other, on all 
grounds, are still sufficient to prevent the un- 

k 



130 RUSSIA. 

natural preponderance too likely to accrue 
from the realisation of such a project as that 
alluded to; and this the Emperor discovered 
too late — having omitted to compute the ele- 
ments of one other, and one only, possible 
combination by which that defeat could be 
effected. 

An union of sentiment between the cabinets 
of a newly-elected republican autocrat and 
the rigidly constitutional sovereign of Great 
Britain appeared, without doubt, to the Im- 
perial cogitations the most preposterous of sup- 
positions ; particularly while individuals of the 
latter Government were publicly denouncing 
the conduct and character of the new French 
potentate, the somewhat hearty acceptance of 
whose advent to power by another distinguished 
member had occasioned a serious internal divi- 
sion in the Ministry ; and while, throughout 
the land, the British Press, with unrivalled 
generosity and foresight, were alternating be- 



RUSSIA. 131 

tween the not very consistent prophecies of 
French invasion and French downfall — between 
joy over the statistics of a decreasing popula- 
tion, and dread of an increasing power. 

Belying, therefore, on the sincerity of this 
display of cordial misunderstanding, and the 
hereditary hostility of the two nations, Nicholas 
ordered demands to be made of Turkey in 
relation to the protectorate of the Greek Chris- 
tians which were palpably inconsistent with 
the Sultan's rights of sovereignty in his own 
dominions. To the audacious matter of these 
demands, Prince Menschikoff, the Imperial En- 
voy, added that insolence to the Porte and that 
general arrogance of manner which fortunately 
aroused, to an unwonted degree, the indignant 
attention of all the resident diplomats of Con- 
stantinople : who hesitated not to express both 
publicly and privately their marked disapproval 
of such uncourteous demeanour to a friendly 
Power ; and which has stamped the delivery of 

k 2 



132 RUSSIA. 

this message with a peculiar and ineffaceable 
infamy. 

These demands, by the judicious and spirited 
advice of the representatives of France and 
England at the court of the Sultan, were re- 
sisted. Modifications proposed on the part of 
the latter were refused. An ultimatum, addi- 
tionally offensive on the side of Eussia, was 
rejected ; and the Prince retired. 

Notwithstanding the somewhat ominous con- 
juncture in opinion and advice of the repre- 
sentatives of these two courts at Constantinople, 
Nicholas, on the departure of his Envoy Extra- 
ordinary, finding that his projects had been 
reciprocally communicated to each other by 
the Western Powers, and unitedly condemned, 
abandoned all further disguise of his intentions, 
and ordered the occupation of the Danubian 
Principalities. The Pruth was accordingly 
passed, and Jassy and other places occupied by 
Eussian troops, by command of the Emperor, 



RUSSIA. 133 

a material guarantee in the event of the 
Porte finally refusing submission to his terms. 
It was at this crisis that the design of Turkey 
i dissolving view settled, unfortunately, into 
a steady transparency, about which there could 
be no misconception. But as the detail of 
events is not here to be looked for. and as from 
this point the flowers of diplomacy were rapidly 
transfigured into fruits of war — of which m 
now living have enjoyed at least a mouthful, in 
the shape of income-tax and other necessaries 
of life — it will be sufficient to add that it 
the unlooked-for and almost incredible union 
of the governments, legislatures, peoples, and 
armies, for the time being, of France and Eng- 
land in a policy at once just, generous, and 
sago lat has given new life and increased 

certainty to the principle of national inde- 
pendence ; and the vindication of the fact that.. 
in the dealings of governments, as of man with 
man. right is to be considered before race or 



134 RUSSIA. 

religion. How far beyond the radius of this 
truth — and men often pay dearest for the sim- 
plest lessons — the world at large or the more 
immediate belligerents profited by the war, 
will probably never be precisely communicated 
to each other. One thing is obvious, that the 
introduction of Sardinia into the contest, like 
the addition of a fraction to the sum of millions, 
sensibly diminished at the time — though, not 
being thought of now, it has ceased to impair — 
the general impressiveness of the event; for 
that England and France united should require 
the assistance of the arms of a petty state 
which it was necessary to subsidise, and not 
more immediately concerned in the conflict 
than Switzerland or Belgium, it were unreason- 
able to suppose. The three vast and ultimate 
elements of European society, neither of which 
can be vanquished or even seriously invali- 
dated except by union of the two others, were 
in deadly shock ; and such an interference was 



RUSSIA. 135 

as uncalled-for as ineffectual. Another remark 
to be made by way of conclusion is, that, 
whether for the better or the worse, the circum- 
stances of her defeat have led naturally to a 
somewhat sullen isolation of Eussia from the 
other governments of Europe, and a professed 
indifference towards them, the effect of which 
on the great Conservative party of the Con- 
tinent, whose ostensible leadership was vested 
in the Imperial Czar, may be traced, to the 
joy of some and the discontent of others, in 
that position of manifest disparagement which 
the legitimist and dynastic interests of various 
nations now occupy. Aggression in the East 
and conservatism in the West formed the plot 
and underplot of the drama in which Eussia 
was before that period engaged; but another 
stage and another character may lie before 
her. 

In relation to Poland enough has been already 
said to render it unnecessary to spend much 



136 RUSSIA. 

time in moralising over the changes of sub- 
lunary affairs. Poland was a Power in Europe 
when the Dukes of Muscovy exercised about as 
much influence on the events of the world as 
do at present the Princes of Monaco ; and when 
the head of the Teutonic knights, predecessors 
of his Prussian Majesty, received with humble 
thankfulness the gift of part only of the province 
from which the present royal title is derived. 

The Poles were always a turbulent and un- 
steady people, and — too much addicted, from 
the earliest periods of their history even to the 
present time, to " sublime and sanguinary 
manifestations," to use the lofty language of 
their most recent protest — themselves provoked 
finally the fate to which they succumbed ; and 
remain a lasting monument to the civilised 
world of the consequences of a people, sur- 
rounded by governments possessing a regularly 
organised delegation of social authority, claim- 
ing for themselves the privileges of a barbarous 



KUSSIA. 137 

liberty wholly incompatible with the interests 
of advanced society. 

The Poles, for the most part Eoman Ca- 
tholics, neglecting all practicable improve- 
ments, and still devoted to the pursuit of 
their one grand impossibility, may be dis- 
tinguished as of all the nations of Europe 
the most highly uneducated. In the mean 
time, the toleration even of their religion as 
Eoman Catholic is another of those points 
which the subtilty and craft of the Eussian 
Government has established as a means of 
control ; for so long as the Poles retain any 
recollection of their independency, and so long 
as the necessity of securing possession of the 
land — a yard westward being well worth a mile 
eastward — is imperative in the mind of the 
governing race and dynasty, so long the policy 
of precluding the possibility of complete sym- 
pathy among the people, and of keeping open, 
in fact, a source of disaccord, which can always 



138 RUSSIA. 

be intensified into animosity as occasion may- 
serve between any two classes, or races united 
in nothing but subjection to the same Imperial 
Crown, and not unwilling to be the instruments 
of each other's degradation, is too obvious to 
require further proof, or those parallels even 
which might be adduced from other govern- 
ments more popularly responsible. 

Neither are the Poles entirely exempt from 
liability to reproach in their dealings with 
others; their treatment of the Cossacks for 
two hundred years has rendered those tribes 
their hereditary foes ; and the presence of these 
at Warsaw, Lublin, Modlin, and other carefully 
watched places in that kingdom, is in unison 
with the general tenor of history and all state 
policy in such matters ; based as it is upon a 
principle which Great Britain also has acknow- 
ledged, and upon which she still acts. 

Since the accession of the present Emperor, 
the intentions of the Eussian Government to- 



RUSSIA. 139 

wards Poland, as evinced by acts, have been 
both liberal and amicable; so much so that 
farther concessions are impossible, without 
danger at least of exciting the jealousy of other 
portions of the empire. For not only Poland 
but Finland and Lithuania have recollections 
of constitutions, the separate existence and 
rival action of which would doubtless be ini- 
mical to that imperial unity of administration 
which it has been the perpetual aim of Eussia 
to establish throughout her dominions. 

The Sclavonian mind, it may be assumed, as 
a general rule, is rather imitative and appre- 
ciative than logical or speculative ; and while 
devoted to unity of sentiment and demonstra- 
tions in mass, seems not to be endowed with 
that energy w 7 hich in Kelt and Teuton in their 
combinations is ever prompting the individual 
to eminence in arts, or civil life, or even to 
martyrdom in these pursuits, nor for the attain- 
ment and transmission of popular liberties. 



140 BUSSIA. 

Great exertions are lavished with theatrical 
pomp on puerile demonstrations, which might 
be reserved for more effective purposes. A 
peculiar costume, a fanciful arrangement of 
colours, a torrent of sentiment, strikes an. ob- 
server from its uniformity as fictitious, or me- 
chanical ; the object being multiplied, the ef- 
fect of the impression is proportionately dimi- 
nished. A family in mourning excites our sym- 
pathies; but a nation in mourning has the 
effect which a ceremony or spectacle intended 
to be impressive might be expected to have. 
This is not the way in which liberty has been 
won by those who loved it best, and best knew 
how to obtain that highest of earthly blessings. 
But although the Poles have at all times made 
but ill use of their opportunities, vainly enacting 
impossibilities, and giving authority to suicidal 
absurdities, — demanding absolute unanimity in 
a deliberative multitude, and dignifying with a 
kingly veto every individual member of an ill- 



EUSSIA. 141 

assorted, irresponsible, and eminently corrupt 
assembly, — yet it cannot be concealed that 
Poland has a certain claim to sympathy which 
Europe recognizes ; and that while the troubles 
of Bussia in Poland are likely enough to syn- 
chronize with the abolition of serfage, the posi- 
tion of that province adjoining now constitution- 
ally-governed countries, independently of its 
history, necessitates probably at no very distant 
period — whatever internal complications in other 
quarters of the Russian empire may be the 
result — political concessions of a substantial and 
satisfactory nature. These concessions, if sought 
with prudence and pacific perseverance, may 
unquestionably be looked for with confidence ; 
but the misfortune is that a party, as head- 
strong as it is weak-brained, is counselling 
measures of a totally different tendency, and 
which involves the assertion of national inde- 
pendence — a ghost which refuses to be laid, but 
still only a ghost. 



142 RUSSIA. 

In the mean time it is owing to the reciprocal 
relations of Hungary and Poland to Eussia and 
Austria, which are to each other in the position of 
contradictories and sub-contraries, their mutual 
interests directly amicable and obliquely hos- 
tile, that the gloomy discord of the two empires 
has not before now broken out into more fatally 
overt manifestations. 

Siberia, in respect to that nucleus of empire 
which has been located in various times at 
Novgorod, Moscow, and Petersburg, and which 
appears to have at present a strong tendency to 
gravitate towards the shores of the Bosphorus, 
being almost entirely unproductive to its Im- 
perial owner of moral or political influence, 
exhibits but the splendid powerlessness of a 
cometary appendage. The voice of its people 
is never heard ; Europe only knows of it as a 
land of snows, and fogs, and furs, of mines and 
pines. To a Eussian criminal, however, whether 
real or supposed, the name Siberia signifies that 



RUSSIA. 143 

comparative degree of punishment to which 
death ranks only as positive ; supplying, indeed, 
an equivalent to purgatory among the pro- 
fessors of a creed deficient in that potential 
article of belief, so reasonable, so consolatory, 
and withal so remunerative. 

Yet it must be admitted that in the relations 
of Russia with China, more intimate and 
favoured than those of any other people, an 
indirect aspect of rivalry, commercial and 
political, brings intermittently this enormous 
province within the scope of British observa- 
tion ; while its territorial position with regard 
to Persia, Tartary, and the many minor inde- 
pendencies of Central Asia, restless and refluent 
as the sands of their deserts, excites perpetually 
an instinctive caution in the minds of the 
Trade-kings of the East, the Lords of India, 
who forget not that it was to Russian intrigues 
we owe the Affghan war; and that as the 
progress of Russia is inevitably towards more 



144 



BUSSIA. 



fertile districts and positions more potential 
than those she at present occupies, her object 
is undoubtedly to obtain a commanding point 
upon the Eastern Ocean both for naval and 
commercial purposes. Whoever else may sleep, 
Russia is watchful over expiring empires ; and 
is always ready to administer such death-bed 
consolations as the successor to power has 
naturally on his tongue. Her advance in this 
direction has been uniformly stealthy but 
steady. But it is possible that too much 
success may some time shake the solidity of 
her empire. And at all events, in case of 
" anything happening " to the Chinese empire, 
it may become a question which only an 
Imperial Legislature can solve, whether our 
own petty possessions at Hong-Kong would 
be found sufficient as a fulcrum for the support 
of British interests in that important region. 

But although Russia has doubtless her mis- 
sion, external and internal, to fulfil, among the 



KUSSIA. 145 

national families of the world ; and although 
she has, partly during the great Bevolutionary 
war, given evidence of what that mission is, as 
well as by her conduct and attitude since the 
Congress of Vienna, both with regard to the 
events of the last forty-five years and the 
observance of treaties — a conduct and attitude 
eminently distinguished by a consistency and 
dignity appropriate to the great conservative 
power of the Continent ; yet, since the Crimean 
war, which, if it effected nothing else, had the 
glory of having broken up for ever the offensive 
confederacy of the double-headed eagles, it 
cannot fail to have been observed that Eussia, 
whether from motives of choice or necessity, 
has shown but a very inactive and reluctant 
interest in the affairs of Western Europe. And 
for her own sake, and in face of her own 
internal difficulties, this is probably the wisest 
and safest course she could pursue. The 
time is gone by, it may be hoped, when 

L 



146 RUSSIA. 

Eussia appeared, and with some reason, in 
the imagination of many, to occupy towards the 
rest of Europe a position analogous to that of 
Macedon towards the states of Greece in the 
days of Demosthenes, — and the suggestion is 
uneasy enough ; but to such the reflection must 
be consoling, that just as her last foes, the 
brave mountaineers of Caucasus, have been 
vanquished, and the first symptoms of terri- 
torial repletion manifested by this constrictor 
of nations, her attention should now be, as it 
probably for a long time will be, mainly, if 
not exclusively, centred in herself. 

By the measures recently adopted by the 
Imperial Government in relation to the serfs, 
the general population being elevated, the 
relative position of immense classes and strata 
of society is, of course, dislocated — to be found 
perhaps, at some future time, ranged against 
each other in anticlinal attitude. In any case 
the initial struggles of a nation towards freedom 



RUSSIA. 147 

are always attended with painful or disastrous 
circumstances; and since her troubles appear 
seriously to have commenced, and it is difficult 
and even distressing to contemplate the possi- 
bility of an irresponsible despotism exercised 
over fifty or sixty millions of free men, the 
present system of government will have in- 
fallibly to give way; in which event the 
achievement of national benefit depends natu- 
rally on the character the contest may assume. 
Democracy is the most — perhaps it might be 
said the only — artificial form of government, 
and if man were entirely a pure intelligence 
it might even be characterized as the most 
reasonable. But having a blended constitution 
in which instincts and passions frequently 
opposed to the dictates and deductions of 
reason play the most important part, mankind 
in general have found it safer and on the whole 
more conducive to their happiness to be content 
with a less pretentious position than that which 

l2 



148 RUSSIA. 

by the strict division of human rights they 
would be justified in assuming. If men were 
not secretly conscious of this fact, what despotic 
force could withstand the merely expressed 
wish of a united people; a power which like 
the mesmerist has only to say " I will, so and 
so," and dynasties and despotisms vanish ? But 
the truth is that men, instinctively knowing 
themselves better than political theorists can 
teach them, have always sought safety in a 
power able to repress and control themselves, 
giving sufficient effect to the demand of a 
general sense of justice that it should act on 
all sides with uniform pressure. This security 
different nations have found according to the 
innate characteristics of race, religion, culture, 
and other disposing circumstances, in various 
forms of government. The pure and simple 
races find it in despotism ; which is not tyranny, 
but in certain conditions of society an express 
result of the popular will. The mixed races, 



BUSSIA. 149 

more advanced in civilization and general 
social condition, look for this security rather 
under classified institutions and complex poli- 
tical systems, endowed with self-reparative and 
expansive energies. 

Eussia, it need scarcely be said, will be long 
before she arrives at such a condition ; but, un- 
happily, it sometimes happens that in periods 
of political agitation, visionaries and enthusiasts 
will precipitate conclusions for which the more 
cautious section of society, being wholly un- 
prepared, are fain to relapse into extremes 
which cause the fruitless ruin of an originally 
well-intended enterprise. Eevolutionary ten- 
dencies, it may be taken for granted in Eussia, 
may be and would be defeated ; endeavours for 
a share in the government, as a right, by 
certain sections of the nobility and people 
are far more easy to be conceived, and would 
be far more difficult to subdue. 

But if the Emperor be not prepared to concede 



150 KTTSSIA. 

something in this way, lie had better not have 
released the serfs from servitude ; for their dis- 
content will probably become greater than 
before, and if greater, more embarrassing ; as 
they will have naturally become possessed of 
an order of ideas and opinions which find no 
legitimate means of development and ex- 
pression. 

Should this ever prove the tendency of things 
in Eussia, and representative institutions at any 
time be established, there would require to be 
provided, for the proper working of the system, 
different centres and limitations of localities; 
and this, it is possible, may supply the means 
by which the divulsion of the empire may be 
effected, undesignedly perhaps, but doubtless 
beneficially. For it seems unreasonable to 
suppose that this mighty aggregate of nations 
and territories should always, or even for long, 
enjoy that perilous pre-eminence which would 
necessarily pertain to it as an integral power ; 



RtJSSIA. 151 

and which as one and indivisible, though of an 
inferior character morally and politically, it at 
present occupies. 

Lastly, this may be noted, that however 
available it may have been in times past for 
aggressive purposes, the social constitution of 
Eussia, though superficially regular, and some- 
what elaborately organized, is, in view especially 
of the new order of things inaugurated by the 
recent reforms, essentially defective. The no- 
bility, though hereditary, have no real power as 
a class in the government of the State, and no 
substantial privileges of a public character but 
those attached to them as individual office- 
holders, in a manner and for a period entirely 
at the discretion of the crown. Neither have 
the citizen class any political rights or immuni- 
ties, except also as individuals invested with 
official authority. All power devolves down- 
wards upon the people ; nothing emanates from 
them. The only aspect in which Eussian 



152 RUSSIA. 

society is capable of being viewed with any 
degree of satisfaction, is in its intimate con- 
nexion with the land, in which all classes, even 
those of the lowest degree of serfdom, are in- 
alienably interested. Eussia, therefore, which 
has already announced herself as one of the 
powers of the future, and is evidently looking 
forward to a vast extension of her influence at 
no distant date in the affairs of the world, 
presents the somewhat singular spectacle of 
an autocracy based upon practical socialism. 
Hitherto, by permission of superior authority, 
and to a limited extent in certain literary cir- 
cles in one or other of her capitals, opinions 
have not been altogether without their repre- 
sentative organs ; but the contemplation of a 
vast and entire nation without any rights of 
their own, and not ever likely, therefore, to pay 
much respect to the rights of others, claiming 
proudly for their chief ally the great democratic 
Power of the New World, is not suggestive of 



RUSSIA. 153 

very confiding or encouraging reflections to the 
supporters of constitutional governments, and 
the originators and conservators of civil and 
religious freedom, equally against the tyranny 
of the one or the multitude. 

To what extent the new Imperial scheme of 
emancipation will operate, and how far the 
interests of the class proposed to be benefited, 
formerly restricted to the land, may become 
modified by their freedom, has yet to be seen. 
Their gain in one direction may possibly be 
counterbalanced by their loss in another. At 
the same time the stereotyped immobility of 
Russian society as an universal characteristic is 
lost. A fluctuating class will be at the disposal 
of the Government, which may possibly enable 
it to fortify itself against popular movements 
not unlikely to ensue, and the issue of which 
may eventually prove of the highest conse- 
quence to other and distant nations, as well as 
to " all the Eussias." 



FRANCE. 



FRANCE. 



It is not uninteresting to observe, that all the 
great states of the West are, ethnologically, to 
borrow a term from a sister science, of con- 
glomerate formation. In some the constituent 
elements are combined in more equal propor- 
tions than in others : the former being the case 
in Great Britain, which may be considered 
Kelto-Teutonic ; and Austria and Prussia, as 
each a mixture, though in different ratios, of 
German and Sclavonic population. On the 
other hand, the two most homogeneous empires 
of Europe are Eussia and France. In France, 
at the commencement of the historical epoch, 
the Gauls — akin to the Gael of Caledonia, the 



158 FRANCE. 

Galatians of Asia Minor, the Kelts, and the 
Kymri of Wales, or Galles — are found undis- 
puted possessors of the land. No traces, at 
least, of an earlier people in that capacity — out 
of the Drift — are discoverable. With these 
the Romans — their conquerors, and themselves 
of a kindred race — largely intermixed ; and 
finally, the Franks — a clan of Belgic Gauls, of 
mixed origin, and producing but little effect, 
apart from their conquest, on the general popu- 
lation — after subduing a small section of the 
country, finally succeeded in imposing their 
name upon the whole. Upon antecedents like 
these depend the nature and direction of national 
policy. Pure races are always of an aggressive 
character, nor is it until they become mixed 
that they become stationary or contented. Dif- 
ferent varieties even of the same stock per- 
petually contend together, until a social com- 
bination has been satisfactorily effected. These 
characteristics, however, of race— wherever the 



FRANCE. 159 

battle-ground was situated, whether in Ger- 
many, Belgium, or Italy — may be considered as 
originating in the natural rivalry of Kelt and 
Teuton. While it is difficult to say which has 
gained or suffered more than the other, the 
result, as at present shown by territorial pos- 
sessions, is satisfactory enough, both in its pre- 
sent aspects and future probabilities. The 
aggressive, or rather dictatorial, character of 
French policy is doubtless owing, in a great 
degree, to the comparative unity of origin of 
the mass of the French people; the German 
element being — since even the Burgundian 
stock has been for more than a thousand years 
subordinately blended with the Gallic — com- 
paratively insignificant, even taking into ac- 
count one or two other provinces on its borders, 
of later acquisition; to the ardour and noble 
egotism of the Keltic mind ; and to the grand 
idea of internal unity which naturally developes 
itself into a theory of external predominance. 



160 FRANCE. 

These principles have been uniformly and 
necessarily prevalent in France, whether, as a 
Power, it be considered in the earlier periods 
of its career as feudal, despotic under Louis 
XIV., democratic under the Convention, or a 
mixture of autocracy and democracy, as under 
the Napoleons. 

France is unquestionably the index-finger of 
the European Pentarchy. In almost every- 
thing she takes the lead of the Continent, as 
her natural prerogative, as her uncontested 
right. Not always the first in invention or in 
speculative opinions, whether political or philo- 
sophical, — but in the practical application of 
them, in comprehensive but compendious theo- 
ries respecting them, in deductive reasonings 
from them, — it is to her as the indicator of civil- 
izing improvements and elevating moral move- 
ments that the world will be in all probability 
indebted for the currency of an idea, and its 
general adoption. To know the theory of any 



FRANCE. 161 

science or art, social or physical, to be able to 
estimate its symmetrical proportions and its 
harmony with others, it is even now necessary 
to obtain access to French literature. English 
or German writers will probably give more 
copious details, and occasionally grander, if 
somewhat disproportionate, views of particular 
subdivisions of science, or objects of thought ; 
but nowhere, except under the guidance of the 
master intellect of France, can the totality of 
such matters be effectually approached. Along 
with this completeness, nevertheless, it is con- 
ceded, the idea of limit is essentially connected ; 
and so it happens that in some departments of 
literature the indefiniteness, irregularity, and 
want of roundness, so to speak, in the Anglo- 
Teutonic mind, is occasionally productive of a 
grandeur of effect which all the form and finish 
of French art, all its constructive and systematic 
force, fail to accomplish. 

The title accorded to her sovereigns, of Eldest 

M 



162 FRANCE. 

Son of the Church, is another proof of this 
reputation of European leadership pertaining to 
her by hereditary right ; for it requires but little 
reflection to recognise in this appellation the 
fact that the early conversion of the Gauls to 
Christianity was the soundest proof of the supe- 
riority of their intelligence over the other sub- 
ject nations of Rome, and their quick appre- 
ciation of all civilizing influences that can 
possibly be afforded or desired. To this title 
assumed by her rulers may be added, with at 
least equal justice, that of the most liberal and 
enlightened of the national members of the 
Roman Catholic Church. For though Pepin 
and Charlemagne were the primal patrons and 
establishers of the Church in its temporalities, 
yet from the days of Boniface VIII., and even 
previously, it is evident that servile submission 
to the Head of the Church in his secular aspect 
— for his resemblance to Janus is well-known — 
rarely or never has formed a feature of French 



FRANCE. 163 

character ; while in regard both to doctrinal 
tenets and ecclesiastical administration, their 
repeated assertion of what are called the Gal- 
lican liberties, is a sufficient vindication of 
their independent temper, and their just con- 
ception of the limits to which even the loftiest 
human authority is amenable. 

The itical constitution which France at 
present possesses is the very best she has en- 
joyed at any period of her history. For any- 
thing approaching to a shadow of constitutional 
government, beyond what may be denominated 
merely mediaeval institutions, such as the lits de 
justice and provincial parliaments, it is only 
necessary to go back to 1789. The first fatal 
error committed by the nation, and that from 
which all subsequent disasters flowed, was the 
amalgamation of the three orders of the States- 
General in the one, so-called, National As- 
sembly. True it is that the original deflection 
of France from her proper orbit was caused by 

m2 



164 FRANCE. 

the perturbing influence of the American revo- 
lution, her interference in which was succeeded 
by a righteous, but rigid and rapid, retribution 
of calamities ; but America, with all its faults, 
was prudent enough to avoid that unnatural 
desecration of political affinities, which consists 
in the forced amalgamation of all orders of 
society in one turbulent and ill-assorted as- 
sembly. Of the issue of this terribly fierce 
republicanism it is needless to recall the recol- 
lection, or of the stern and sanguinary period 
which succeeded ; or the merely military rule 
of the first Empire. The Eestoration was a 
compromise of forces, material and moral, tra- 
ditionary and revolutionary, which eventuated 
in a failure more significant to its supporters 
than satisfactory to its enemies. The system 
inaugurated and perfected by Louis Philippe 
was a gross delusion — a mockery of representa- 
tive government, the fallacy of which was pal- 
pable to all, even the populace, at the very 



FKANCE. 165 

moment they were engaged, with apparently 
patriotic ardour, in giving it effect. The elec- 
toral colleges never numbered much more than 
a quarter of a million in their lists ; while the 
civil places in the gift of the Crown, or dispos- 
able by the Ministry, were upwards of three 
hundred thousand. In the Chamber of De- 
puties the King had it mostly his own way ; 
and when he had it not, it was because he cared 
not. Occasionally, beyond doubt, he found it 
politic to practise an indifference he possibly 
might not feel ; while at other times, having 
intrigued successfully with the Opposition to his 
own Ministry, he would condole, with every 
appearance of sincerity, with the Cabinet he 
had himself defeated. Torrents of ministerial 
eloquence have been known to pour forth at 
his command, only to be lost in the desert pla- 
titudes of predetermined minorities. But this 
could not last for ever. The system, on the 
whole 3 was unsatisfactory to the country. Ke- 



166 FRANCE. 

forms were desired and proposed, and a popular 
movement set on foot for securing them. The 
King unwisely resisted the projected improve- 
ments until too late ; and the solemn feast of a 
Eegifugium was a third time celebrated in Paris. 
The revolution of February followed rather than 
succeeded. Here again was repeated the mon- 
strous error of a single chamber elected by uni- 
versal suffrage. Connected with its inglorious 
career, two only things are known which give 
to it the slightest degree of interest ; namely, 
that it was in its defence an ingenious repub- 
lican general invented the praiseworthy and 
philanthropic process of effectually nullifying 
the system of barricades, which had more than 
once lent to revolution and insurrection a lament- 
able success never again to be realized ; and 
that, during a fit of temporary sanity, and in 
support of the traditional policy of France, 
succours were despatched to Eome to protect 
the independence of the Pope. The Assembly, 



FRANCE. 167 

it is sufficient to add, lasted long enough to 
disappoint every hope that was entertained of 
it by the real wellwishers of their country ; 
and by the factious conduct of its sections, 
which refused to unite for any object except to 
oppose all government, it disgusted the press, 
which it both restricted and flattered, and 
affrighted and humiliated France. 

It was at this juncture that the President, 
the elect of the people, who had been elevated 
to his position by a national vote, comprising 
a greater number of intelligent voices than 
ever before recorded in the annals of nations as 
united for the attainment of a single purpose, 
took into his own hands the guidance of the 
state ; and subsequently called to imperial 
power by the same commendatory suffrage, he 
proceeded at once to solidify the social edifice, 
shaken and tottering as it was, by a constitu- 
tion which, if not securing everything that is 
desirable in national life, is still adapted, with 



168 FRANCE. 

eminent sagacity, to obtain probably the greatest 
amount of good practicable under the present 
condition of the society in which it is es- 
tablished. 

On the broad base of universal suffrage both 
the imperial monarchy and the popular repre- 
sentation are founded. If to Englishmen the 
constitution appears in any point defective, it is 
in the want of prominence given to the aristo- 
cratic element of society. The preservation of 
the influence proper to each of the great co- 
ordinate classes appears essential to the pros- 
perity and stability of a state. It is not enough 
that the extremes of executive power and demo- 
cratic opinion be embodied in a government, 
if the intervening condition supplied by the 
judgment of an aristocracy be wanting. Eome 
fell by the absorption of all power in the hands 
of the Emperors. The Florentine Eepublic fell 
by its total exclusion of the aristocracy from 
their natural share in the government ; the Vene- 



FRANCE. 169 

tian by a like error with regard to the people. 
But aristocracy and nobility are not the same 
thing. In England the influence of the inter- 
mediate branch of the legislature is wisely pro- 
vided for. The Peers are even a more highly and 
widely representative body than the Commons. 
In France nobility exists, but not aristocracy : 
as an order, only socially, not politically. The 
absence of a landed senatorial class, with inde- 
pendent co-ordinate legislative power in the 
state, is undoubtedly a misfortune ; because such 
a class, while giving dignity to social traditions 
and stability to national policy, secures, as far 
as human prudence can, the treatment of ques- 
tions both internal and foreign, under conditions 
totally removed, and equally, from the passing 
passions of the populace, and from those in- 
fluences to which from various quarters fluc- 
tuating and elective assemblies are always liable. 
Nor is such an institution necessarily obstruc- 
tive, further than as deliberation is fortunately 



170 



FRANCE. 



preventive of that precipitate success at which 
the ardour of individual legislators, and even of 
parties, occasionally aims. The true path of 
national improvement, and of social and moral 
elevation, is, like that of all elevations, circuit- 
ous. No one ascends a mountain perpendicu- 
larly. Earth herself confesses only an oblique 
inclination to the zenith. If something is lost 
in the actual enjoyment of a right by the lapse 
of time, something, on the other hand, is gained 
in that sense of general security which instinc- 
tively accompanies the known unwillingness to 
change. It is the indirect action of the opinion 
of the enlightened and reflective minds com- 
posing the wealthy and leisured classes of 
society, and of which this order is the natural 
interpreter, that eventually decides for good all 
public questions of importance. 

Although, therefore, it is to be regretted that 
in France this order of the state has not all the 
perfection attachable to it theoretically, yet the 



FRANCE. 171 

Senate being composed of members named for 
life, and comprising many individuals of worth 
and ability, social eminence, moral influence, 
and ecclesiastical dignity, it enjoys very sensible 
advantages over a similar institution in another 
quarter of the world. A senate should either 
sit by virtue of its own hereditary and inde- 
feasible right, or by nomination of superior 
authority. To sit as temporary and account- 
able delegates of the classes which underlie it 
socially, but override it politically, is absurd. 

But if France be, as has been recently said 
by an authority of some eminence on matters 
of that kind, "the most democratic nation in 
the world/' then the revolutionary change which 
destroyed the old laws of succession to property, 
and necessitated the subdivision of land in cer- 
tain degrees of equality among children, was 
the next best alternative, as the state is now 
virtually based on a conservative democracy. 

This fact, for which neither the English press, 



172 FRANCE. 

Parliament, nor people has made due allowance, 
sufficiently accounts for that change in the sen- 
timents of the great body of the French nation 
towards England, which appears incredible and 
unintelligible to so many editors, M.P.'s, and 
colonels of volunteer regiments, who labour so 
heartily to raise up a feeling of animosity in 
the people of this country against those who 
have ceased to return it in kind. The landed 
proprietary of the country, i. e. the people of 
France, numbering several millions of families, 
and in a far greater proportion to the total 
population than our own, as distinguished from 
the comparatively unsettled, and therefore less 
responsible, population of the great cities, who 
are naturally more excitable from being congre- 
gated in masses, have come to understand the 
advantages of a government which wisely but 
sternly made known its intentions from the day 
of its accession to be no longer at the mercy of 
a militant mob perambulating the purlieus of 



FRANCE. 173 

Paris. These classes were not answerable for 
the Bevolutions of July and February. The 
revolution for which they are answerable is 
that of December. And after their experience 
of what the press and the populace of Paris 
could effect for and against any government, 
and for and against each other, their recol- 
lection of metropolitan barricades and socialist 
massacres, both under the auspices of distin- 
guished republican generals, they are scarcely 
to be blamed for the support of a man in 
whose elevation they saw the probable realiza- 
tion of a government far superior, at least in 
strength and moderation, and in attention to 
the just material interests of the community, 
to the frightful burlesque then being enacted 
by the Legislative Assembly. Never was there 
a more perfect accord between power and opi- 
nion. The moment the President and the 
people came in view of each other they sym- 
pathised. Society now, in France, far from 



174 FRANCE. 

being permeated by a despotic rigidity, is rather 
like the free and fluctuating ocean, which, while 
capable on the surface of wholesome agitation, 
and occasionally conflicting currents, is still in- 
disposed, in its interior depths, to disturbance, 
and in its foundations immoveable. They who 
inferred, either in England, Germany, or else- 
where, that the elevation of Louis Napoleon to 
power was a menace to this country, have been 
simply convicted, by events, of very extensive 
ignorance. A vagrant princeling, whose sole 
inheritance was a dream of empire, may be ex- 
cused referring to his star — they who have 
nothing else have always their star ; and when 
arraigned before a pompous tribunal, if he spoke 
of a cause, a principle, a defeat, they were ideas 
which served to cover with a sort of dignity 
the issue of a reckless, luckless, bootless expe- 
dition. But the responsibilities of power insure 
a very different style of oratory ; and the es- 
tablishment of the empire has proved from the 



FRANCE. 175 

first the triumph, on the part of France, of an 
amicable people, a peaceful government, and a 
policy, in the main, conservative. 

Now the great difference between a limited 
or constitutional monarchy and an autocratic 
government is, that in one the executive or 
monarchical authority is responsible, through 
its ministry, to the representatives of the 
nation ; in the other, the ministry are respon- 
sible to the executive power only, by which 
they are appointed. This is the case in France ; 
and so far, theoretically, it is a despotism. 
For although the people are truly and effici- 
ently represented, yet the body so returned has 
no constitutional controlling power over the 
conduct of the executive. It is certainly useful 
to the Emperor as an indicative organ of public 
opinion ; and doubtless he duly attends to the 
signs proceeding from such a source — carefully 
and conscientiously attends to them, for they 
are of the utmost importance. But, under these 



176 FRANCE. 

conditions, all the energies of government obvi- 
ously press in only one direction ; and if any 
considerable accident happens to the state- 
machine, there is no counterbalancing power 
provided in the civil constitution able to check 
the downward rush of things which usually 
takes place in such circumstances, or steady 
the ranks and straighten the line of that tumul- 
tuous march of events which at such periods 
may alw T ays be anticipated. All the great bodies 
of state — in fact, the Ministry, the Council, the 
Senate, the Deputies — are almost merely rami- 
fications or conditions, variously modified, of the 
executive power. 

Now in a very simple state of society, such 
as mostly prevails under governments inspired 
by the paternal principle, the course of admi- 
nistration is regulated by a single and unqua- 
lified impulse imparted from above ; but society 
under more complicated conditions requires, 
and indeed naturally generates, a systemized 



FRANCE. 177 

antagonism of interests, by the due friction of 
whose opposing forces the persistency of pro- 
gress and the permanent welfare of the com- 
munity are at once reconciled and secured. 
Such ought undoubtedly to be the case, it may 
be said, in France, were one theory of govern- 
ment universally applicable; for, practically, 
France is the freest country in the world — cer- 
tain manifestations of political liberty, calcu- 
lated to imperil public tranquillity, only ex- 
cepted ; and the press may by some be supposed 
to afford sufficient field for the deployment of 
these peaceful hostilities among the higher and 
more refined forces of civilization, to which 
allusion has been made. But here unfortu- 
nately other quantities occur, which, by their 
mass or their movements, more or less detract 
from the roundness of the calculation. 

In view of the interests of those vastly 
preponderating classes of the community, the 
strength of the state, the dominant class, averse 

N 



178 FRANCE. 

to needless change, and opposed to further poli- 
tical experiments at their expense — all, in fact, 
that may be entitled to claim the national name, 
— it is not of course to be supposed that these are 
left without their proper safeguards. These are 
both negative and positive ; and the first is the 
Press. The press of Paris, though on the whole 
conducted with dignity and talent, is not to be 
taken unreservedly as representative of the 
opinion of France on all subjects. On ques- 
tions of domestic national interest, the proprie- 
tary masses not seldom look upon it with sus- 
picion or indifference, or, it may be, with hos- 
tility. They view indeed with anything but 
disfavour the warning, prosecution, or extinc- 
tion of a journal whose obstinate or fatal 
freedom of speech might possibly prove un- 
favourable in moments of agitation to the pre- 
sent orderly and prosperous condition of things. 
An unrestricted press is very well, perhaps — 
though that has never been known in France, 



FKANCE. 179 

nor hardly anywhere ; but peace, prosperity, 
increasing trade, agriculture improving both in 
its means and its results, commerce extending, 
a revenue unequalled in former periods, unsur- 
passed in amount, victorious arms, a rectified 
position among the nations who once gathered 
round her to look with wonder and almost in- 
credulity on the depth of the humiliation to 
which she could be reduced — all these are solid 
triumphs, substantial prizes, for which France 
feels itself indebted to the present government 
— any one of which almost might in her eyes 
be cheaply bought by the extinction at one 
blow of the whole political press. Whether the 
press be in fact the vital organ by many sup- 
posed, or whether its asserted sensibility and ex- 
treme tenacity of life be traceable only to some 
old Whig tradition, may perhaps be doubted ; 
that it will bear, even among Anglo-Saxons, 
considerable laceration the moment society feels 
itself in want of a strong hand, certain Pre- 

n2 



180 FRANCE. 

sidential amenities practised at New York and 
other places at the present moment satisfactorily 
testify. Be this as it may, it is the interests 
of those vast, sober, frugal, industrious, honest, 
and hard-living masses of society, with whom 
the personal and domestic virtues of a Christian 
people are principally found, which the Impe- 
rial Government is both bound and inclined to 
protect ; and which necessarily, in the conside- 
ration of all governments, — except perhaps those 
tentative productions existing in the boundless 
vacuity of editorial brains, dreaming of the 
vice-presidentship of provisional administrations, 
— outweigh a thousand dubious benefits attribu- 
table to the mere expression of political specu- 
lation, or the petulant discussion of measures 
deemed advisable by those whose only possible 
interest is the welfare of the whole nation. 

Whatever the degree of representative cha- 
racter, moreover, which the press of Paris may 
be justified in vindicating for itself, it is certain 



FRANCE. 181 

that from the impulsive nature of the population 
to which it appeals, its triumphs have always 
been identical with the overthrow of govern- 
ment, and its subjection and restriction neces- 
sary to the normal conditions of civilized and 
peaceful society. From the excitable cha- 
racter, therefore, of the population of large 
cities — preeminently, the metropolis — in which 
political ideas once cast abroad have a tendency 
to ferment with perilous rapidity before the 
clearer judgment of the total community has 
time to be expressed with decision, it is satis- 
factorily found that the interests of society as a 
whole are opposed to the unrestrained action of 
this attractive but dangerous power. To colder 
constitutions and a more perfectly balanced 
system like our own, it may, under ordinary 
circumstances, be harmless; but in France a 
thoroughly free press has hitherto meant po- 
litical licentiousness in the widest extent. In 
the mean time the rural proprietary, the steady 



182 FKANCE. 

masses of the State family, who had never 
heretofore been consulted or instructed in la 
haute politique of dethroning kings and establish- 
ing republics, provisional governments, national 
workshops, and all that, confess themselves, and 
very justly, wearied not only of such proceed- 
ings, but of all symptoms and tendencies in 
that direction, such as the political penmen of a 
metropolitan press too often find it lucrative, 
in periods of popular commotion, to stimulate. 
The Imperial Government, it need scarcely be 
added, has been the only one which, by de- 
stroying the anonymous character of the press 
and wisely rendering its writers individually 
responsible, has been enabled to reconcile con- 
siderable freedom of opinion with administrative 
energy and social security. And it is in sym- 
pathy and compliance with the interests of this 
vast and almost all-inclusive class that the 
operation of this institution is felt to require 
checking so soon as ever it indicates the slightest 



FRANCE. 183 

inclination to pass that boundary mark which 
the conservators of the public safety have 
established. 

The other safeguard specified as one of a 
positive nature, is connected with the army. 
The army, drawn, of course, from those classes 
recently considered, is a far more really repre- 
sentative institution than the press, and in some 
respects a substitute for it. A national army 
and a national press, each in full vigour, can 
never coexist, unless in a land where military 
honour is yet to be understood, or where civil 
rights are not worth having. The press has no 
ruling idea, if it be not that of total insubordi- 
nation : it is Babel. In the army, order, dis- 
cipline, stand for all others. Whatever the 
original associations of the private — the analy- 
tical tendencies of the mind of his officer — 
there can be no question of the contempt with 
which the ablest and most exciting article will 
be conned by a full colonel, intrusted at a 



184 FRANCE. 

perilous time with the preservation of the public 
peace, nor of the quiet ferocity with which his 
orders relative to the author, editor, printer, 
and press, would be executed. This is what is 
expected of the army as an institution every- 
where, and a duty it has been frequently called 
to fulfil in France. 

The conscription is not an invention of impe- 
rial tyranny but a republican institution, and is 
variously regarded as a right to be claimed, as a 
duty to be discharged, or as a privilege to be 
desired. The army has been sometimes opposed 
to the government, and sometimes to the nation. 
To identify the interests of the army with the 
stability of the one and the prosperity of the 
other, the apportionment of France into military 
districts appears a singularly sagacious precau- 
tion. The mere pronunciamento, as in former 
times, of merely one city, or even of one or 
two provinces, will suffice no longer for the 
success of any possibly revolutionary movement. 



TRANCE. 185 

The general opinion of the country must for the 
future be consulted, and, more than that, the 
general force combined, before the government 
could, under any circumstances, be removed 
with that somewhat farcical rapidity peculiar 
to the trained scene-shifters of the old Parisian 
political stage. Whatever contributes to the 
security of France, is of the highest interest and 
importance both to England and Europe. There 
is reason, therefore, for congratulation in the 
prospect glanced at. But it is under circum- 
stances of this kind, where so much is dependent 
on the will and the skill of a single individual, 
that the character and moral tone of one man 
becomes, at times, a matter of immense, almost 
immeasurable, significance ; because such con- 
siderations notoriously and seriously influence 
the cause of international policy. In this pre- 
dicament is the reputation of Napoleon III. 
To form a just estimate upon this important 
subject, it will be found necessary to assert 



186 FRANCE. 

either that the events of the time have mani- 
festly belied themselves, or that the British 
public generally have been under a false impres- 
sion ; and that the press of this country in par- 
ticular, always argumentative, never logical, 
starting from premisses without foundation, 
have committed themselves to conclusions ut- 
terly irreconcilable with reason. Let us first 
hear the voice of prophecy. The prophets of 
our press have predicted, now any time that 
can be named during the last ten years, that 
Louis Napoleon would embroil all Europe ; that 
his empire would be the empire of the sword ; 
that he was bent on avenging Waterloo ; that 
he would invade England ; that he would betray 
England some night under cover of a fog ; that 
he would seize Belgium for the French army, 
just to keep their hands warm ; that he would 
seize the Bhine, probably to cool them ; that 
he would seize Etruria for his cousin ; that he 
would seize Sardinia for himself ; that he would 



FRANCE. 187 

snatch. Morocco from the jaws of Spain, as 
the sea-eagle snatches from the fish-hawk the 
prey which an admiring hemisphere was about 
to see equitably gorged by the original depre- 
dator; finally, that he would seize Syria, in 
order that he might figure again, it is to be 
supposed, as the Old Man of the Mountain. 
None of these things has he done. But far 
from being discouraged by this circumstance, 
they have been at the trouble to invent for him 
a variety of imaginary misdeeds, which it would 
be gratuitous cruelty to recapitulate. The 
reckless untruths, indeed, uttered upon this 
head form one of the most astounding and 
melancholy phenomena of the times in which, 
we live. The fact appears to be this, that 
Europe generally during the last ten years has 
been at peace ; but that in the two wars which 
have taken place, one was chiefly at the in- 
stigation of England, and in this, along with 
France, she took an active part ; in the second, 



188 



FBANCE. 



which was commenced by Austria, England 
gaye to France her passive support. In the 
first case England can boast of having had an 
ally, and the only one during her long career, 
whom it was not necessary for her to pay. The 
sum and value of all the other predictions it 
were needless to characterise. 

But of course there is a cause, even if there 
be not a reason, for everything. The ostensible 
cause is the alleged violation by Louis Napoleon 
of his oath — "Je lejure " — to uphold the republi- 
can constitution. But it is patent to any one 
desirous of directing to the matter a calm and 
clear intelligence adjusted to that point of 
view in which other considerations connected 
with the main object show equally clear, 
that the violation of that oath was a more 
sacred duty than the keeping of it. Without 
alluding to proverbial views of propriety in 
certain cases, it is admitted that it may, and 
not unfrequently does, become the duty of an 



FRANCE. 189 

individual to forfeit his word, where the change 
of circumstances has so altered the relative 
position of the parties to the engagement, that 
not the most deliberate or sacred vow could 
require or even justify the literal fulfilment of 
the contract. Through the mouth of the Presi- 
dent the nation no doubt took, as it were, by 
proxy, the oath at the same moment. But the 
world knows what the career of the Legislative 
Assembly proved to be. Never, therefore, was 
there a more solemn act of absolution, virtually 
administered by a people who were, and are, 
the only real judges of the necessity of the case, 
than when, in those assemblages, comprising 
much of the opulence, intelligence, and moral 
worth of the community, which gathered together 
at all the great points of the President's tour 
through France, it became manifest that one 
universal understanding animated the immense 
masses — not always, it is true, articulate, but 
always sensible — to the effect that the hour was 



190 FRANCE. 

at hand in which they looked for the total and 
triumphant abolition of that cumbrous parody 
of constitutional government over which the 
man then before them had the misfortune to 
preside, and under which it was their disgrace, 
their involuntary disgrace, to live. Never was 
there a happier or more salutary awakening 
than that which France was one morning made 
conscious of, when the spectral and gigantic 
incubus which so long had weighed upon her 
tumultuous bosom, at the resolute touch of a 
stern friend, no longer to be restrained, vanished 
at one bound into its righteously predestined 
annihilation. Europe herself, wearied and fe- 
vered with watching over that frightful trance, 
breathed audibly her sense of relief, as each 
successive symbol and incitement of the per- 
nicious illusion, which had so fatally usurped 
the faculties of that melancholy but still majestic 
victim, was by the same strong hand cautiously 
but unsparingly stripped away ; and while order, 



FRANCE. 191 

dignity, and power, took the place of turbu- 
lence, and weakness, and contempt. 

George IV. confessedly violated his oath, 
according both to his own and his father's con- 
ception of it, when giving his assent to the Bill 
for the Emancipation of the Catholics ; and pro- 
bably no one loved him less on that account — 
Lords Winchilsea and Eldon perhaps excepted ; 
but fevf, indeed, considering now the beneficial 
consequences of that measure, have looked 
with much squeamishness on the transaction: 
nay, it will doubtless be sincerely hoped by 
many, that if this be his greatest offence, as may 
almost be inferred from the lofty virulence 
with which a similar act is treated by the purists 
of the British press in the case of a contempo- 
rary sovereign, even this may ultimately be 
forgiven him. The Emperor, moreover, is ac- 
cused of being a sphinx, whatever that may 
amount to; a false character is attributed to 
him, and the complaint spreads that his conduct 



192 FKANCE. 

is mysterious. He is accused of increasing the 
army while actually diminishing it ; of haying 
the army entirely at his disposal, as if this were 
not the usual prerogative of the executive ; of 
being entirely himself at the mercy of the army ; 
of ruining the country by the personal extrava- 
gances of his court, while France w r as never so 
rich, so prosperous, so contented, as at the 
present moment. So much for prophecy. It 
might seriously be feared that we are living 
near the end of the world, or certainly in quite 
antepenultimate times, since it is written of 
such periods, that " whether prophesyings, they 
shall fail;" but that systematic and unexcep- 
tional failure leads to a reasonable suspicion 
of intentional deception. To mislead the public 
mind by keeping up an eternal alarum that never 
runs down has been, it must be feared, the in- 
tention and the practice of the self-appointed 
monitor of the people. That the organs of all 
political parties have coalesced upon this object, 



FRANCE. 193 

proves only, if it proves anything, that the pros- 
perity of the fourth estate is naturally of more 
importance to itself than the welfare of the 
third, or the tranquillity of the whole. 

So much has been said upon this topic, not 
only from a due sense of the value of the press 
as an institution, in which it is obvious, never- 
theless, from the necessary operation of natural 
causes, fear and interest mutually stimulating 
each other, that public opinion is occasionally 
at least, on most important matters, refracted 
rather than reflected ; and that by an agitation, 
which it is its duty to calm and not to exaspe- 
rate, the objects of national consideration are 
much too frequently distorted or inverted ; but 
from a conviction that if ever the amicable 
relations between the two nations are inter- 
rupted, such interruption will be traceable to 
that anonymous, irresponsible, and therefore 
inconsiderate organ. 

The probabilities of such an event are, it is 

o 



194 FRANCE. 

true, from the close and increasing ties between 
the two nations, and from the unwonted union 
of their governments upon questions of foreign 
policy, daily and happily diminishing. Some 
few points of divergence, however, it is neces- 
sary to touch upon. First, as regards the late 
war with Eussia. In that war England con- 
fessedly played a secondary part. The greater 
number of troops, the greater sacrifice of life, 
was on the part of the French. The French 
had, practically, the direction of the hostilities 
by land. The English were justly to have 
had the lead in the naval campaign; but it 
was precisely here that boastful failures were 
all we could show; and after one or two 
grand but unsuccessful manoeuvres, and just as, 
it is alleged, our admirals were on the point of 
exterminating the Eussian marine, the Em- 
peror Napoleon accepted proposals of peace. 
Now if we agree at all to act with allies, it is 
obviously requisite to look at things with a 



FKANCE. 195 

binocular glass, so as to have one eye for 
our friends ; and the objects of the war being- 
gained, it appeared unwise and unnecessary to 
prolong it merely for the greater glory of the 
English naval service ; nor was it assuredly to 
the interest of France or of Europe that the 
Eussian fleet should be annihilated. Various 
reasons might be assigned to the contrary. 
But on a comprehensive survey of things, the 
propriety of the issue adopted can scarcely now T 
be disputed, and indeed is generally acquiesced 
in ; for on the whole it is better that dignity 
and honour should not be totally lost in any 
contest by either party. 

Alarm has even been sought to be created 
by a rumour of alliance between France and 
Eussia. But so long as France gives to England 
her right hand, there can be no objection to her 
appropriating her left to Eussia. The interests 
of these two Powers in certain matters of conti- 

o2 



196 FRANCE. 

nental policy, as distinguished from European, 
and in which England is not so intimately con- 
cerned, run parallel to a considerable extent ; 
in some other matters each approaches nearer 
to England than the other ; but France holds 
unquestionably the determinative position be- 
tween the two. Great Britain can never be 
attacked with effect except by a combination, 
at the head of which these two Powers must 
stand ; a condition of affairs not very likely to 
occur. In the mean time France at peace and 
on terms of amity with Eussia, equals, in other 
words, the quiet of Europe assured. 

Between the French and German nations 
but little affection subsists ; and except in lite- 
rary and scientific circles where individuals of 
either family have won for themselves by their 
genius, their labours, or their discoveries, a cos- 
mopolitan renown; and whose achievements for 
the advantage of mankind are happily viewed 



FRANCE. 197 

through the colourless light of pure intelli- 
gence, — and except in occasional instances of 
reciprocal benevolence or social connection, — 
their opinion of each other is in fact by no 
means daintily disguised or charily expressed ; 
nor is there much more between Germany and 
Kussia. But in view of the somewhat debili- 
tated condition of Austria, there is a manifest 
disposition on the part of France to cultivate 
friendly relations with the North of Germany, 
and under certain conditions to agree even to 
an aggrandisement of Protestant power. 

The relations of France with Prussia are 
certainly somewhat peculiar. The traditional 
assertion by France of the Ehine as her natural 
boundary maintains an uneasy feeling in Prus- 
sia that still contributes to the good effect of 
preventing an open rupture with Austria and 
compelling respect to the minor states of Ger- 
many. For in any other disposition either the 
aid they might solicit would be accorded to 



198 FBANCE. 

thera by France, or the condition she would 
insist upon would be secured without much 
trouble. 

Now that the struggles of party and the 
crotchets of individuals respecting the cession 
of Savoy have ceased, it is plain to every one 
who reflects upon the matter dispassionately 
that that province pertains as naturally, and 
analogously, to France as Monmouthshire to 
England; considering Wales as representing 
an independent state. The passes and the 
slopes of the Alps on her own side unquestion- 
ably belong to France ; but the truth is that 
in the day of her humiliation the Great Powers 
at the Congress of Vienna, considering her 
probably in the condition of a house to be let, 
ordered the key to be left at the next door. 
Whether this was likely to continue when a 
responsible tenant was once in occupation, may 
be left to the imagination of even a centaur to 
discover. 



FRANCE. 199 

Eegardecl merely as an infringement of the 
treaties of 1815, it is somewhat too late in the 
face of such instances as are supplied by Bel- 
gium, Cracow, and the generally lauded issue 
of the war in Lombardy, to invoke against 
France alone the maintenance of public instru- 
ments which all the Powers of Europe, greater 
and less, have successively lent their hand to 
invalidate. France, too, has had her heptarchy 
as well as England, and Savoy was the last of 
these petty states. As to its being the cradle 
of the Sardinian royalty, there is no doubt that 
after the conquest of Lombardy the new king 
was as content to abandon his cradle as all the 
other European dynasties have been. The 
cradle of the Hapsburgs, for instance, was in 
Switzerland ; of the Eomanoffs, in Sweden ; 
of the Hohenzollern, in the township " of that 
ilk;" of the G-uelphs in Germany ; of theBona- 
partes in Corsica. On the other hand it cannot 



200 FRANCE. 

be denied that the race, the language, the poli- 
tical and commercial interests of the Savoyards 
were manifestly French ; and the real injustice 
which they suffered was their forced union with 
a state, from which they were physically divided 
by a lofty and laborious barrier, which afforded no 
encouragement for their industry; and in whose 
representative assembly their own deputies 
could neither understand the language of their 
colleagues, nor make themselves intelligible. 

The annexation of Nice was a matter clearly 
distinguishable, in the opinion of many, as a 
matter of policy and propriety from the former 
question. Its position, however, between the 
two nations is analogous to that occupied in our 
own island by Berwick-upon-Tweed, long the 
object of contention between two rival kingdoms. 
The habits and other superficial characteristics 
of the population, the language chiefly spoken, 
and the aspects of the city are Italian; but 



FRANCE. 201 

in this case also the more important interests 
of the city, military and commercial, are un- 
doubtedly French. 

With regard to Naples, the conduct of the 
Emperor of France, far from being, as was 
asserted, enigmatical, appears perfectly simple 
and clear. For it is quite certain that in the 
face of the anti-national farce nicknamed a ple- 
biscito, and which, being theoretically the most 
solemn and peculiar act of citizenship, seemed 
to the Piedmontese authorities appropriately 
and gracefully to be placed under strict military 
supervision — particularly as the people them- 
selves, those actuated by interest or compulsion 
excepted, as is evident from the number of 
votes which amount rather to a deficit than a 
minority, signalised in most places their opinion 
by their absence — it is quite clear that for a 
long time the Emperor, as well as many others 
anxiously interested in the welfare of the 
Sicilies, awaited a more direct and trustworthy 



202 FRANCE. 

manifestation of the national will ; but seeing 
that the country was entirely prostrated to the 
military occupation of Sardinia, and having 
hitherto in the politest and most complimentary 
manner forcibly subordinated his policy to that 
of England on the Neapolitan question, reserv- 
ing the Roman for himself exclusively, it 
became obvious that he must in due time with- 
draw even his fleet from Gaeta unless prepared 
to demand the withdrawal from Neapolitan 
territory of the invading troops of his ally. 
In the mean time those troops increase, and 
public opinion is totally stifled. 

In all speculations current in France upon 
the Eastern question, Egypt and Syria are 
intimately involved. French policy has always 
been to effect the severance of Egypt from 
the Porte, and secure its independence from even 
the restrictive jealousy of the tutelary Powers. 
By her possession of Algeria she has thought 
to secure its subordination to herself. The 



FRANCE. 203 

canalization of the Isthmus is one means to 
this end. Anything which tends to increase 
the importance, increases at the same time the 
probability of the future independence of 
Egypt, and such tendency favours the prepon- 
derance in Egypt of French influence. French 
ideas are more prevalent in Egypt than English. 
Although the commerce of the latter may be 
much more extensive and has sufficient parti- 
sans in commercial quarters, yet the Egyptians 
believe the English do not take that interest in 
their general welfare and advancement that 
the French do, but simply regard them as a 
territorial convenience for the transit to India 
of goods and passengers via Suez. As all con- 
tingencies relating to the event before referred 
to are boldly and unfeelingly alluded to every- 
where, it may be affirmed that in the interests 
of universal commerce the safety of that pas- 
sage would have to be secured, even if Great 
Britain should be compelled to add to her 



204 FRANCE. 

known partiality for commanding straits the 
privilege of fortifying the solitary isthmus in 
question ; and, if the canal should be in exist- 
ence, of exercising over it the same sublime 
superintendence which she exercises from her 
little crater at Aden and her " Booke's nest " 
at Gibraltar. 

In Syria there is little doubt the French are 
better liked than ourselves ; for, besides their 
fortunate assumption of the protectorate and 
championship of the Christians of the Western 
Church, their exertions are known to have been 
in favour of the national independence of the 
natives whether of Mohammedan or other 
belief. But although the Arabs hate the 
Turks passing well, and although it may be 
opined that should the latter ever be expelled 
from Europe — and they could not be expelled 
from everywhere — they would probably in such 
case centralise their power round Damascus or 
Jerusalem, it is not certain which of these races 



FBANCE. 205 

would be most obnoxious to the French, who 
have, like ourselves, their own national weak- 
ness — an undisguised propensity for the occupa- 
tion of foreign capitals, the seats and centres of 
ancient civilisation and historic renown. 

In Further India France is apparently fol- 
lowing a plan which, as with England in the 
dominions of the Mogul, will likely end in the 
subjugation gradual but total of immense ter- 
ritories. In China the policy of France has 
been entirely subsidiary to our own, which ever 
since the opium war may be, in the opinion of 
many honourable men now, and possibly will 
be by impartial history," characterised as one 
unequalled, unvaried, unmitigated iniquity; — an 
iniquity now shared by our allies, who with 
ourselves have appropriately closed our politi- 
cal relations with the Celestials — who, whatever 
. their claim to that title will be ready enough to 
apply to us its opposite — by an act of wanton 
barbarism, devastation, and outrage, associated 



206 FRANCE. 

for ever with a name now known from the 
iEgsean to the Pacific, as synonymous with 
a passionate regard for all that is venerable 
in art, or beautiful in its combination with 
nature. 

Much has been said and written concerning 
the augmentation during late years of the 
French navy ; but there does not appear to be 
anything in this fact, rightly considered, to 
arouse the hostility or the jealousy of England. 
After the long and disastrous naval war in which 
the marine of France had been notoriously re- 
duced to a very low and inadequate condition, 
but little attention was paid to it during the 
reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. After 
the accession of the Orleans line, a Eeport, 
sanctioned and headed by the Prince de Join- 
ville, was made to the Government, recom- 
mending an immediate and continual increase, 
calculated to extend over at least the twenty 
years succeeding, of that branch of the warlike 



FKANCE. 207 

forces of the State. The recommendation was 
adopted by the republic, and has been simply 
continued by the Emperor. And if it be borne 
in mind that a just proportion is requisite to be 
maintained between the two arms into which 
the material forces of a State requiring both 
means of defence are divided, it is necessary 
also to remember that France has, in addition, 
another law of proportion to observe — namely, 
that if England takes of right the headship of 
the world in this matter, France, with the 
largest and most important seaboard of any 
nation in Europe, feels herself perfectly justified, 
there can be no question, in assuming as her 
proper station, in point of naval strength, the 
lead of the continental Powers. Nor has she, 
nor has Europe forgotten, that during the 
Crimean war France was compelled to borrow 
of England the means of conveyance for some 
thousands of her troops ; a circumstance which 



208 FRANCE. 

it is quite certain, from the tone adopted towards 
her recently by the English Parliament and 
press, she would not wish to see repeated ; and 
any future necessity for which it is her just 
object to avoid. 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



Of all countries England is the most truly 
representative, not only socially with regard to 
races, but constitutionally with regard to prin- 
ciples of government. Comprising within her 
moderate limits a more notable variety of race 
than in a similar space can be found in any 
single State, she is consciously productive of 
their combined virtues and distinguishing cha- 
racteristics. There is an absolutism in this 
country more perfect than that obtained under 
any despotic Power of Europe, but it is the 
absolutism of law ; there is a democracy, more 
honourable to the advancing intelligence of the 
world than either Athens of old or New York 

p2 



212 GREAT BRITAIN. 

in modern times lias furnished as an example 
to history, for it is the only democracy that has 
proved itself reasonable. Where constitutional 
freedom, the crown of the subject, is held in 
reverence by an executive, still conscious that 
the eye of liberty has ere now tamed the lion- 
like glare of even royal prerogative, and where, 
at the same time, loyalty to the sovereign, like 
a law of nature, unwrit but universal, pervades 
all classes of society, there is necessarily attained 
and exemplified the perfection of civil govern- 
ment. It is true this has been achieved only 
by stern, laborious, and painful processes; so 
much so that Englishmen frequently feel a kind 
of incredulous contempt for nations who have 
essayed or who desire to occupy a position com- 
manding similar immunities, without sufficiently 
dignifying themselves by preparatory sufferings. 
And in this there is some reason. This mental 
attitude is indicative of a certain mastery 
achieved — of a certain truth realized. It may 



GREAT BRITAIN. 213 

be doubted whether a simultaneous upheaval of 
the political surface of all nations to one level 
would be desirable, were it possible. The con- 
stitutions of nations are almost as various as the 
productions of nature ; and while, materially, the 
populations flourish by the cultivation and in- 
terchange of their own peculiar produce, — their 
political welfare, it is also apparent, is better 
secured by each one striving to perfect its appro- 
priate institutions than by vainly endeavouring 
to naturalise others of an alien growth, and 
perhaps uncongenial habit. These institutions 
it is pretty safe to consider in the light of poli- 
tical optimism, and at periods of ordinary qui- 
escence as not far from the best applicable to 
their possessors. Exact uniformity of govern- 
ment is not only, of course, impossible, but it 
may be credited that even a very near resem- 
blance is undesirable. Uniformity is always 
dear to despotism; and now that the sanction 
of Divine authority is so ready to be propounded 



214 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



in favour of every autocratic government, the 
greater the varieties by which communities are 
demarked the better ; for variety involves, more 
or less, covert antagonism ; antagonism, self- 
reliance ; self-reliance, safety. 

It is undoubtedly an advantage to a State to 
have a clear and definite line of policy ; so that 
not only its own principles and practice may 
coincide, but that other nations may know what 
it is prepared to do — what to defend, and to 
shape accordingly their own course. Up to the 
close of the great revolutionary war in 1815, 
this was manifestly the case with Great Britain. 
The supremacy of the seas and the independ- 
ence of the continental nations, as opposed to 
the aggressive domination of France, were the 
objects for which she strove, and which to a 
certain extent, in concert with others, she 
gained. This was a conservative policy. From 
the period immediately succeeding, owing to 
the cessation of war and the introversion of the 



GREAT BRITAIN. 215 

national mind exclusively on its own domestic 
affairs, a great reaction took place ; and during 
the next ten years, under the auspices of Mr. 
Canning, who seemed more ambitious to make a 
great name than to guide consistently the course 
of government, a policy was adopted of a nomi- 
nally liberal character, calculated apparently 
to undo almost all that his country had been 
labouring to establish previously* Because 
France was still suspected — that is, within five 
years of her complete overthrow — of ambitious 
views towards the Pyrenees, Mr. Canning con- 
ceived the brilliant idea of effectually preventing 
the realization of any such designs by stripping 
Spain of the best means of support she had, not 
only against France individually, but of main- 
taining a superior position among the nations 
of Europe generally. So, to spite France, he 
humbled Spain. " If France," said Mr. Canning, 
"is to get possession of Spain, it shall not be 
Spain with the Indies." Thus, although the 



216 GREAT BRITAIN. 

alleged intention on the part of France was 
never proved, and although nothing has ever 
transpired to warrant the idea that it was en- 
tertained, — her action in Spanish affairs being 
repressive, not aggressive, — all the American 
colonies of Spain were encouraged, instigated, 
stimulated, to revolt, and the expenses of their 
respective revolutions generously paid for by the 
people of this country. Led by a Conservative 
minister of Liberal leanings, Englishmen appear 
to have believed, without examination, reflec- 
tion, or forethought, that revolutions were the 
most natural expression of popular sentiment ; 
and that peace, progress, prosperity, general en- 
lightenment, wise legislation, with no hostilities 
more sanguinary than rival arguments might 
furnish to conflicting politicians, were confi- 
dently to be looked for from a people so eager 
to secure the enjoyment of public rights and 
national independence. Debts, it was urged, 
were easy to be discharged where an unlimited 



GREAT BRITAIN. 217 

supply of silver was to be had for merely 
mining. The independence of the colonies was 
proclaimed; and what has been the result? 
Have they redressed, as the eloquent minister 
announced, the balance of the Old World ? or 
rather, while the mother-country has been 
slowly but perceptibly improving for many 
years, have not her degenerate offspring been 
as sensibly receding into a lawless, unprin- 
cipled, denationalized condition? Misled by 
false notions of the value of political liberal- 
ism, and taking no security for the just in- 
fluence of station and property, and the con- 
secration and elevation of law, it has been the 
policy of this country notably in recent times— 
and of the United States uniformly and natu- 
rally, because their diplomatists knew what lay 
before them — to support every successive change 
of government that promised more liberality 
than its rival. But it is not liberality that 
society wants in such conditions ; it is stability. 



218 GREAT BRITAIN. 

Mexico, in little more than thirty years, has 
passed through every form of which mis-govern- 
ment is capable, from military monarchy to 
perfect anarchy. An armed faction enters, say 
by the south, a certain town, which it squeezes 
like an orange, and departs ; the following day 
a hostile band enters by the north, and pares it 
to the core. Doubtless the major part of the 
Mexican people, at the present moment, to 
judge from the satisfaction exhibited during 
recent events by the inhabitants of Hayti, would 
be glad enough to be taken again under the old 
dominion. In the mean time France, Spain, 
and England, having each their separate and 
crying grievance against this wilful, worth- 
less, and incompetent creation — the triumph of 
British liberalism, are unitedly despatching a 
force, both military and naval, to Mexico, not of 
necessity for the purposes of war, but of a cer- 
tainty to administer a just reproof, by taking 
from her the control of some portion of those 



GKEAT BKITAI^. 219 

resources which she has so long neglected or so 
industriously misapplied, and directing them to 
more honest and useful ends. If injudicious 
counsels on her part should unhappily render 
direct hostilities necessary, still it must be con- 
fessed that as in this case there cannot be a 
scruple of doubt as to which party is in the 
right and which in the wrong, warlike mea- 
sures may be sometimes viewed as the expres- 
sion of the reason of a nation ; as it is not 
unfrecjuently more rational to effect an object 
by force than waste the world's time by a vain 
appeal to unappreciated arguments. 

That England should have employed her 
influence in such a manner as only to bring 
about a state of things in which revolution and 
insurrection constitute the normal state of 
society — where the only hope of the peaceable, 
the orderly, and the industrious, lies in the ad- 
ministration of martial law, and where insult 
and injury to their main benefactors have become 



220 GREAT BRITAIN. 

a national custom — is a fact much to be de- 
plored, and can only be accounted for on the 
understanding that liberalism is a principle too 
vague to supply a distinct policy, except at the 
expense of its own consistency. 

By the same species of policy it is, neverthe- 
less, only fair to admit the independence of 
Greece and of Belgium was subsequently 
effected ; but care was taken in those cases to 
provide a more compact and duly graduated 
political system, the result of which has been 
so far and on the whole satisfactory. 

But since the great contest between the aristo- 
cratic and democratic parties in this country, 
which was closed by the passing of the Eeform 
Act — a wise, just, and wholesome measure in 
itself — the popular feeling and the Government, 
or rather the successive Administrations, natu- 
rally affected by it and the urgent adjurations 
of the press, have tended perpetually and with 
increasing velocity to a policy that can only be 



GREAT BRITAIN. 221 

described as " amateur insurrectionist." Wher- 
ever tidings arrive of a hostile feeling to any 
government, of a threatening movement, of an 
incipient agitation in any quarter of the world — 
Ireland, India, and the Ionian Isles excepted — 
to that quarter our sympathies are immediately 
directed — though as destitute, it may be, of all 
true direction as the gyrations of the needle in 
a tropical storm — and loudly and unmistakeably 
expressed. Whether such ought to be the con- 
duct of this country, and whether we are acting 
in a worthy or dignified manner, or on a principle 
we should approve of as applied to ourselves, 
a very little reflection on the present course of 
things will enable an impartial judgment sum- 
marily to decide. 

In the solution of many important political 
questions which mainly affect particular States 
in certain relations, England, by means of her 
vast social activity, public discussion, and open 
press, will always be found to have a direct 



222 GREAT BRITAIN. 

interest, if only of an internal character ; for it 
is the speculative opinions of multitudes, or of 
eminent individuals on these points, which 
demark parties and decide the incidence of 
policy. The greater, of course, is the necessity 
in such matters both of caution and consist- 
ency. 

With regard to the resuscitation of extinct 
nationalities, for which the aid and sympathy 
of Great Britain are so often invoked, it 
may be worth while in the first place to ask 
ourselves the question whether any. combina- 
tion of forces, territorial, general, or religious, 
in presence of the virtual council of Powers 
which presides over the international affairs of 
Europe, could effect upon the whole a more just 
or safe equilibrium of interests than that which 
at present exists ? A negative answer will, it 
is strongly suspected, be found necessary. 

The resuscitation of Poland is one of these 
political problems which, like perpetual motion 



GREAT BRITAIN. 223 

— on the theory that everything that is possible 
has a comparative degree of probability, hangs 
upon men's minds with a kind of uncouth 
fascination, which is only lamentable when 
they remember that at the time of its first 
division England was squabbling with Spain 
about the Falkland Islands ; and at its second, 
occupied in barren hostilities with France 
about the possession of Corsica, And sup- 
posing Poland made independent, does it 
not occur that a vast deal might be said by 
sympathetic Poles in favour of reviving the 
extinct kingdom of Wales ? Did not his late 
majesty King Edward, of glorious memory, per- 
petrate unheard-of enormities in the reduction 
of that ancient and illustrious nation — a nation 
possessing its own laws, literature, social in- 
stitutions of the very freest character, perfect 
independence, a long line of kings and sages 
whose pedigrees of thousands of years are still 
preserved, and in some cases perpetuated to 



224 GREAT BBITAESL 

the present day ? And what could a barbarous 
Power like England say in reply ? 

Eussia is troubled with Poland. The uni- 
versal press of this country immediately adopts 
the cause of Poland. Nothing appears so pro- 
bable from the temper of the democratic party 
in Europe at the present hour as that an 
attempt will be made to effect the resuscitation 
of Poland ; and although the moral assistance 
of France, who has too long played the part 
of a disturber of nations, and of England may 
be assumed, nothing appears so unlikely to 
succeed; and if we consider that that event 
implies the successive or simultaneous over- 
throw of the military power of two empires and 
one great Protestant kingdom; and when it 
is remembered that the establishment of the 
latter was acquiesced in by England at the 
time, principally as forming a counterpoise 
to the oppressive influence throughout the 
Continent, of the Germanic Empire ; and 



GREAT BRITAIN. 225 

that the effect of such a change would be the 
foundation of another Catholic Power as a 
member of the great European Council of 
States, it may be seriously doubted what would 
be the ultimate gain to society in the sum of 
constitutional government or moral and intel- 
lectual liberty. 

Hungary is a trouble to Austria. Imme- 
diately our publicists, many members of Par- 
liament, many provincial leaders of public 
opinion, and others, issue or deliver stirring 
appeals to the British people in favour of 
Hungary as an independent Power. Enough 
has probably been said upon this question. It 
remains only to add that in their last move- 
ment the Hungarians have plainly taken up a 
position where they will inevitably find them- 
selves on the exhausted side of the process. 
When passive resistance ends in the voluntary 
abnegation of all government and machinery of 
administration among a people, the wisdom of 

Q 



226 GREAT BRITAIN. 

such a course, or the sublimity of such a spec- 
tacle becomes very doubtful ; especially when 
it is remembered that this is done in a country 
not of backwoods or deserts, where it might be 
difficult to supply another administrative body 
on the moment ; but that side by side with it is 
a government from the highest to the lowest 
offices duly organised and prepared to fill up 
immediately every vacant place that occurs. 
Such conduct looks more like fatuity than any- 
thing else. 

But has Hungary any grievance to complain 
of which our Hungary would not be glad to 
adopt by exchange for some of her own ? Do 
both complain that they are prohibited from 
public meetings of a political character, and 
from bearing arms, the distinctive ensigns of 
freemen, which every boy in England or Scot- 
land may bear ? Yet which of them is it that 
has to complain of the last insult that can be 
offered to a subjected state, their compulsory 



GREAT BRITAIN. 227 

support of a religion which is in their eyes 
odious and heretical ? — a mark of thoughtful 
and humane legislation by which one of the 
poorest peoples in Europe are called to pay 
twice over for the exercise of their religious 
duties, — a proof of civil and national equality 
which would be in England unendurable, in 
Scotland unattemptable. Which of them is 
it that has to complain that a barbarous 
outrage on the rights of humanity, in which 
old men, women, and children were turned out 
roofless from their homes on the bleak hill- 
side ; which, if a specimen of episcopal Chris- 
tianity, is carefully to be distinguished from 
the hospitable duties enjoined on the Christian 
episcopacy ; and which if it had occurred in the 
steppes ofKussia, or the sands of Africa, or the 
forests of Brazil, would have called forth indig- 
nation meetings in almost every town in Eng- 
land, only happening in Ireland, moved not 
our sympathy at all? It moved not the less, 

Q2 



228 GREAT BRITAIN. 

let us remember, the sympathy of France. It 
moves not the less the kindly jeers of Austria 
at British inconsistency. 

It may not be denied that a distinction is to 
be drawn between the policy advocated by the 
public organs of opinion and the policy found 
practicable by Government; for Governments 
are responsible not only to their respective 
peoples but to the free opinion of other Govern- 
ments, and of the world generally. But in 
consequence of this inconsistency — and many 
a home truth is administered in despatches 
which if seen at all by a discerning public it is 
fain to admire in the shape of blanks and 
asterisks — the Government of this country has 
lately almost confined itself to the so-called 
policy of non-intervention. This, if honestly 
carried out, may be as justifiable in certain 
cases as any other. But non-intervention in 
case of a flagrant invasion of another's rights 
may be as radically base as the offence itself; 



GREAT BRITAIN. 229 

and as utterly impolitic as can be conceived. 
And again, non-intervention which is interven- 
tion under a disguised name, which is in fact 
sub-intervention, can be neither honest nor in 
any way satisfactory. If indeed non-interven- 
tion loses its genuine character of wise imparti- 
ality and entire abstinence, it may prove both 
w r rong and injudicious in any indefinite degree. 
Attention has been previously directed to 
Italy. The eyes of the world are still upon her. 
Great Britain, adopting nominally this principle 
— if such it can be called — of non-intervention, 
has been aiding and abetting Sardinia in her 
attack upon the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. 
First, let it be shown with what means ; and 
secondly, with what results. At the outset it 
was decided that our moral assistance was to be 
accorded. But of course, as that did not amount 
to much, certain legal authorities were fortunate 
enough to discover, whether in Vattel or Black- 
stone does not appear, that moral aid meant 



230 GREAT BRITAIN. 

volunteer forces, of which the Government were 
supposed not to know. However impressive 
may be the effect under the most solemn cir- 
cumstances of " winking Virgins," it cannot be 
denied that this must have been at least rivalled 
in the emphatic operations performed by the 
nictitating membranes of certain official digni- 
taries at that time in our House of Commons. 

Now volunteer forces such as these were — and 
their composition need not be characterised — de- 
spatched abroad, appear open to every possible 
objection. They are unsatisfactory generally to 
the people desiring aid ; they are ill-assorted, ill- 
regulated, wanting in that common bond and 
esprit de corps which is the foundation of mili- 
tary companionship and military honour ; and 
in fact they are mostly no better than the 
lowest class of mercenaries, mere condottieri. 
The Government that permitted them is not 
responsible for their conduct ; and at the same 
time the Government accepting their assistance 



GREAT BRITAIN. 231 

has not the direct control over them ; being 
hampered partly by unwillingness to incur the 
displeasure of a friendly people, and other con- 
siderations, when correction and example might 
be reasonably required. These considerations 
were thoroughly exemplified in the conduct of 
those who so worthily represented England in 
the hostilities which took place at Naples ; and 
which induced the great volunteer himself, 
their leader, to exclaim, no doubt with the 
heartiest honesty, when quitting the country, 
" Thank God! I have done with the British 
volunteers !" 

It becomes a great nation either to engage in 
war, if it should prove unavoidable, avowedly, 
and for the recognised purposes of -war; or to 
keep peace altogether. But this peddling, 
shuffling, underhanded, amateur revolutionism 
is equally opposed to honour and to common 
sense. 

The results, in the next place, of this policy, 



232 GREAT BRITAIN. 

in which it must be admitted that the Go- 
vernment and the public frankly and wholly 
coincided, may be worth considering. France, 
by her superior weight and activity, intel- 
ligence, and material resources, by all the 
sympathies of the Gallo-Eoman race, of which 
she is the head, with its subdivision of Kelt and 
Iberian, by identity of religion and contiguity 
of position, draws irresistibly along with her 
wherever she may tend, both Spain and Bel- 
gium. To these may now be added virtually 
Italy. In case of a general war, such as Europe 
has once seen, none of these separately could 
resist ; they must therefore in all probability be 
looked upon as her subordinate allies. In case 
of a war between England and France, which 
would be partly carried on in the Mediterranean, 
Italy, exposed to invasion as she is by France, 
must speedily choose her side ; and which that 
must be, her geographical position and various 
other considerations leave no room for conjee- 



GREAT BRITAIN. 233 

ture. It is necessary to go back for a year or 
two. When the war undertaken by the Em- 
peror of France which issued in the indepen- 
dence of .Northern Italy, and when, by the 
absorption of Tuscany and the other duchies 
into the Sardinian dominions, the undue pre- 
ponderance of Austria in the Peninsula was 
done away, and for the future effectually guarded 
against, the Emperor had obviously fulfilled the 
pledges indicated in his expression of " freeing 
Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic." For he 
had no wish, it is manifest, either to destroy the 
kingdom of Naples, or to render Italy one king- 
dom ; which was an event precipitated, contrary 
to his own views, by the ambition of Count 
Cavour ; and as yet only nominally realised. It 
may be that France was not desirous to see an 
united Italy. But whether that be or be not 
the case, it is here where England may very 
possibly feel first the consequences of the de- 
rangement of the balance effected by the recent 



234 GREAT BRITAIN. 

innovation, if it proves of sufficient strength to 
perpetuate itself. 

But seeing that the northern part of Italy, 
having broken from Austria, has become attached 
to France, and will indeed always be subsidiary 
to that Power, it would have only appeared rea- 
sonable that England should have desired to 
see the southern portion of the peninsula in an 
independent condition. A few years ago Naples 
was at all events a rival of, and might have been 
at any time a check to, Sardinia, with an equal 
army and a superior fleet ; and the Govern- 
ment and people attached to us, and England 
to them by mutual favours and reciprocal gra- 
titude, — England always acknowledging the im- 
mense utility on a former occasion which the 
ports of that Power, when friendly, were to her. 
But now all these conditions are reversed, and 
the whole weight of benefit, past and prospec- 
tive, is transferred to France, whose policy it 
has always been to extend her influence over 



GREAT BRITAIN. 235 

all the Mediterranean States. In this we have 
been generously aiding her. But suppose Italy 
arrayed against her, what would be likely to be- 
come of Sardinia then, with the finest harbour 
in the Mediterranean, and its inviting position 
between Corsica and Algeria ? 

Such have been and are likely to be the effects 
of a supposed liberal policy towards Naples, — 
a policy which is entirely independent of the 
question whether Ferdinand was despotically 
inclined, or whether the administration of the 
laws was not grossly abused. The withdrawal 
of the constitutions granted to Naples and 
Sicily at different times by Ferdinand and his 
father was, it must be understood, a compulsory 
act, for which history witnesses, on their part, 
that the Austrian Government was responsible ; 
and which certainly in any just view of things 
cannot be brought forward as a plea for the de- 
thronement of their successor. His faith was 
unimpeachecl, his personal conduct was irre- 



236 GREAT BRITAIN. 

proachable ; he had only just succeeded to the 
crown, when his dominions were surreptitiously 
and unwarrantably attacked by a horde of va- 
grant adventurers from every country, and an 
ominously disproportioned contingent of de- 
serters from almost every army in Europe. 
Surrounded by treacherous advisers and an 
incompetent ministry, he had had neither 
time to mature nor opportunity to prepare 
organic improvements in the constitution, 
while Italy was still vibrating from the shock 
of war. The constitution, nevertheless, which 
in spite of ministerial treachery and inca- 
pacity — in spite of the poltroonery of an army 
which surrendered at the discharge of a feu 
de joie, and of a navy which sold itself to the 
enemy in the sight of its sovereign — the King 
did offer to his country, w r as at least as liberal 
as that which is found so satisfactory in Sar- 
dinia. But this was refused, on the plea that it 
also might be withdrawn. The worthlessness 



GREAT BRITAIN. 237 

of this plea is manifest, as well as the fact that 
the refusal was instigated at Turin, from the 
consideration that Austrian influence being no 
longer to be feared, it depended solely upon 
the people themselves whether they thought 
proper or not to guard and give effect to their 
most cherished rights. Possibly the character of 
our own King John was not all that his people 
wished ; but they having once got hold of their 
Magna Charta were quite willing to accept the 
responsibility of seeing it duly executed. It 
rested entirely with the Neapolitans them- 
selves whether this constitution remained a 
dead letter or not. But the people, bewildered 
by the glamour of a romantic outrage and a bril- 
liant atrocity, signed away their heritage among 
the ranks of royal nations to accept at the hands 
of a guerilla captain the position of a state dis- 
crowned, and a subjugated and insulted province. 
In this condition they remain for the present, 
bitterly but hopelessly repentant, while no fewer 



238 GBEAT BRITAIN. 

than six Koyal Lieutenants in twenty months 
have testified to the grateful enthusiasm with 
which the Sardinian authority has been ac- 
cepted ; and no fewer than sixty thousand 
troops, under the leadership of a man distin- 
guished for severity of discipline, are necessary 
to moderate the transports of the people at the 
sight of their Piedmontese deliverers. 

It can hardly be disputed that the influence 
of all regularly-organised States, as any govern- 
ment is better than anarchy, ought naturally 
to be exerted rather in favour of amending such 
institutions, whether native or foreign, as re- 
quire it, than in destroying, or in permitting 
them to be wantonly destroyed, whether by 
internal insurrection or outward attack. If, 
therefore, instead of abiding by this dubious 
principle of non-intervention where a wrong was 
being openly perpetrated before their eyes, the 
two great Powers, truly liberal but justly con- 
servative, had distinctly said, "We will not 



GREAT BRITAIN. 239 

allow this outrage to proceed at the instigation 
of a rapacious monarch and a mendacious mi- 
nister ; but if the population of these countries 
be desirous, as they doubtless and with reason 
are, of a free constitution, we take it upon us, 
with their consent, in the event of their not 
being able to enforce the observance of it against 
any attempted fraud or force on the part of the 
royal authority, to guarantee it as effectually at 
least as the Austrians formerly ensured the des- 
potic government of the kingdom," the people 
would have been satisfied, the independent au- 
thority of the state preserved, harmony between 
the national institutions secured, and an honour- 
able, consistent, and judicious policy justified. 
For after all, good government is a far more 
important matter than theoretic unity. Nor are 
all unions happy or fortunate ; witness the 
union of Kolmar : while that of England and 
Scotland, so often appealed to, was effected not 
by force, but hereditary succession. 



240 GKEAT BRITAIN. 

Let a moment's regard be now paid to the 
Papacy. Viewed territorially or politically, the 
Papal States occupy the innermost ring of a 
series of concentric circles, the first of which 
comprises its nearest neighbours, Sardinia and 
Naples ; the next Austria, France, and Spain, 
all of which are Catholic Powers ; the outermost 
embraces England, Prussia, Protestant Ger- 
many, Scandinavia, and Eussia, the great he- 
retical Powers of Northern Europe. So far 
from Eome being considered as essentially 
opposed to civilizing influences, it must be 
admitted that Eome is the original ganglion of 
intellectual Europe, and that to her the conti- 
nent at large is indebted mainly for its religion, 
laws, civilization, and much of its art and lite- 
rature. The Pope is primarily a spiritual, 
secondarily a temporal sovereign. In Catholic 
countries, whatever their constitution, he exer- 
cises a subordinate authority. In Protestant 
States, especially our own, the sovereign autho- 



GREAT BRITAIN. - 241 

rity is primarily of a temporal character ; in a 
secondary sense, of a spiritual. There is no 
reason to be found in the nature of things why 
instances of each order should not be compatible 
with good government. But there are con- 
siderable parties in all states who are not only 
always anxious for change, but chronically in- 
disposed towards any particular government 
under which they may happen to live. The 
present Pope signalised his advent to the Pon- 
tificate by establishing a liberal and secular 
administration of the temporal affairs of his do- 
minions, provided for by a senate, which, with 
nearly a hundred members, comprised only four 
ecclesiastics ; but because he did not march 
fast enough with the democratic tendencies of 
an extreme section of his subjects — because he 
w T ould not consent to the inconsistency of de- 
claring war against the Austrian empire, which 
no sane man, in his position, could be expected 
to do — his minister, Count Eossi, a man of 

R 



242 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



liberal, enlightened views, in favour of a sub- 
stantial but moderate amount of popular con- 
trol over public affairs, was brutally assassinated 
on the steps of the Senate-house; and His 
Holiness himself besieged in his palace, and 
finally compelled to exile himself from the 
scene of his benevolent but ill-met exertions. 
The Rome of the republican revolutionists fol- 
lowed ; and quickly, but by no means too soon, 
came to an end. Since that time, as might 
naturally be expected, but little encouragement 
existed among the better-informed and peace- 
ably-disposed inhabitants of the Eoman States, 
to induce them to persuade the Pope to repeat 
his former experiment. The state, moreover, 
of Italy generally has been such as to present 
but few available opportunities of such an 
attempt being made. Nor can it ever be made 
until Sardinia has definitively abandoned her 
senseless and outrageous ambition, and, content 
with the very considerable accessions to her 



GREAT BRITAIN. 243 

dominion, which she has already acquired in the 
north of the Peninsula, leaves her southern 
neighbours in the peaceable enjoyment of their 
just rights. A threefold division only can be 
looked forward to as a permanent arrangement 
of Italian affairs. The unity of Italy is, it is 
almost unnecessary to say, a delusion, which, 
even if forcibly effected for a season, could not 
probably long endure. It is contrary to the 
interests of the Catholic world that the Head of 
their Church should be dependent on another 
Power. The Pope cannot be a subject. Nor 
can there be any reasonable doubt of the views 
entertained on this matter by the most im- 
portant personage connected with it, and who is 
as intimately acquainted with the necessities as 
he is interested in the prosperity of the Catholic 
Church. It must indeed be apparent to all, 
that the interests of Catholicism generally would 
emphatically dictate the propriety of preserving 
the Head of that religion, which succeeds to 

r2 



244 GREAT BRITAIN. 

power by election, independent in the matter of 
temporalities ; neither seeking aggrandisement 
nor dreading diminution, nor covertly soliciting 
subsidies nor active aid from rivals in its favour ; 
and it seems very doubtful whether the in- 
ternal harmony of even nominally heretic States 
would be increased by the threatened destruc- 
tion of the Papacy as an European sovereignty. 
Religious institutions are all of a conservative 
character, whether viewed in their doctrinal or 
administrative capacity. Religious influences 
are progressive only in the individual, and ex- 
pansible solely in the direction of the spirit of 
interpretation. 

England, it is true, has no precise policy 
towards the Papacy, having no direct relations 
with it. But the current, or rather the torrent, 
of public opinion has been manifestly, on all 
sides, in favour of its total demolition as a tem- 
poral power. Many, including some Catholics, 
who are desirous of such an event, have doubt- 



GREAT BRITAIN. 245 

less reasons satisfactory to themselves to ad- 
duce ; but that the Conservative party should 
join the cry, or even Liberal supporters of Church 
and State adopt it, seems scarcely reasonable : 
for in this very measure, so desired and lauded, 
is obviously involved the principle of all Church- 
temporalities, whether pertaining to the Epis- 
copacy or the minor dignities of our ecclesiastical 
system ; and they who have a Pope in every 
parish, originally endowed with such tempo- 
ralities as he enjoys under the auspices of some 
mediaeval Papal potentate, might rationally 
request him to hesitate a nloment before he 
altogether sanctions the vote for the deposition 
of his illustrious prototype. For the democratic 
party, already, perhaps, preparing its plans in 
secret, and maturing an eventual and inevitable 
triumph, will not be slow to adopt a precedent at 
once so ready and appropriate. The argument 
may run thus, by easy stages : — The Head of 
the Catholic Church, the Bishop of Rome, does 



246 GREAT BRITAIN. 

not require temporalities ; neither, of course, 
does any minor Bishop. The Eoman Catholic 
Bishops in a Protestant country, say England, 
require no temporalities. Why should a Pro- 
testant Bishop in a Eoman Catholic country, say 
Ireland ? Why even a Protestant Bishop in a 
Protestant country ? Let us begin with the secu- 
larization of all Church property, and let every 
priest, as in France, whatever his persuasion, 
be paid by the State a just stipend, graduated 
according to his titular dignity. These are the 
known views of the advanced school of demo- 
crats ; and it behaves all cautious men to beware 
how they play into their hands even for the 
gratification of an almost national animosity. 
For if in the political turmoil of the present 
times such a movement as is now on foot should 
by haphazard succeed, and if at any time the 
revenues of the Church fall into the hands of 
the vanguard of democracy, the ecclesiastical 
dignitaries of all establishments and of all 



GREAT BRITAIN. 247 

grades may perhaps regret, when too late, their 
ill-omened triumph over His Beatitude, the Pope 
of Eome. The great body of English Dis- 
senters swell, as might be expected from .their 
antagonism to State churches, the outcry against 
Eome ; but Dissent is also as good as esta- 
blished by law, and has likewise its endowments. 
But the kingdom of Italy, it is said, is an 
accomplished fact, and all that any one has to 
do is to put up prayers for its long continuance 
and prosperity. Let it be so assumed. There 
is a tendency of the times to accept all acknow- 
ledged facts, whether arising from piety, indif- 
ference, or criminal complicity with the actors, 
as events illustrative of the Providential ad- 
ministration of mundane affairs; and since it 
would be absurd to charge prophets with pre- 
sumption, it will be advisable in those who think 
otherwise, to suspend the controversy until some 
decisive confirmation, in the shape of national 
or general advantage, may have accrued, or an 



248 GREAT BRITAIN. 

appropriate rectification unmistakeably desig- 
nated the finality of perfect justice ; for such is 
the most tangible and least fallible test by 
which is manifested the accordance of any event 
with Divine decrees. 

In the mean time, although it is distinctly 
within the modern historic period that the 
Cantons of Switzerland were seen, like moun- 
tains from the waters of the Flood, slowly and 
one by one emerging from the obscurity of un- 
recognised existence, to open and majestic wel- 
come as a sovereign State among the brother- 
hood of independent nations, yet neither is it 
often that the very " incunabula gentis " have 
been so closely observed nor so patently dis- 
played through the many complicated processes 
of diplomacy and war, as in the case of the 
Italian kingdom. For although it could not be 
proved that the kingdom of Italy, like that of 
Rome, was founded upon open violence and un- 
measured falsehood ; like that of Carthage, on 



GREAT BRITAIN. 249 

consummate treachery and more than Machia- 
vellian perfidy; like that of Macedon, on the 
reckless infringement of all national treaties, 
all rights, all courtesies of friendly govern- 
ments; like one that shall be nameless, on a 
plot which an European statesman would have 
hesitated to believe capable of conception by 
even a renegade Vizier : yet indications, it is 
to be feared, both of force and fraud, as is too 
probably the case in the early histories of all 
nations, have somewhat gloomily illuminated 
the initials of her career. 

It will be fortunate, indeed, for some yet 
living, and still more for the memory of others 
now gone, if circumstances such as these should 
prove able to vindicate for themselves suc- 
cessful exemption from a fate consecrated by 
the almost universal experience of humanity in 
every age ; for otherwise, to the shadowy sove- 
reignties of Cyprus and Jerusalem, already so 
productive and enjoyable to the ambitious House 



250 G-EEAT BRITAIN. 

ivov, may be added the equally misty mag- 
nificence of the royalty of Italy. 

The relations of Great Britain to America 
at the present moment naturally occupy the 
general mind. In the war now raging between 
the elder and younger of the two governments 
into which the late United States are practically 
divided, the elder assumes that our sympathies 
ought to be directed exclusively to herself. But 
it somewhat strangely happens that England 
sympathises with both, and can yet conscien- 
tiously decline to assist either. The American 
contest does not represent a siugle question 
only, but rather a chain of questions. Take first 
the view of the Union politically. The Xorth 
has always talked aggressively of Canada ; the 
:h. of ITexieo, Cuba, and the British West 
Indies. But by the disunion these questions, 
if not absolutely dismissed from all apprehen- 
sion, are deferred indefinitely. By disunion the 
two Powers are calculated beneficially to mode- 



GREAT URTTATTT. % ' 1 

each other's proceedings, and to render 
imp :r the future any such things as 

rnd manifestoes. Noi would there be any 
cause for regret in such a cireu: I : Ame- 

ricans themselves — nothing that would be ini- 
mical to thei: -tined progress. But 
at a thing as possible from 
conquest. The balance of power was, in fact, 
needed in America as distinctly as it > 
Eur 

In the commercial view of the q . the 

_:h. it may be saicL has succeeded for many 
years in establishing for its exclusive benefit a 
high protective tariff, ieh Hie Southern 

vere directly, and Great Britain indi- 
ppointed victims. This protective 
rm of the Northern nianv 
the only important question, besides Slavery, 
upon which a tibial ntetna] interests ould 

be established ; and the twin lobes of the na- 
tional brain — their Parliament and their Press 



252 GREAT BRITAIN. 

— discharge the perpetually accumulating bat- 
teries of thought and sentiment by which they 
were supplied from the entire system of the 
body politic. For whether on the summit of 
the mountain, or the side of the sea, or the 
heart of the forest, these questions everywhere 
confronted each other. Both these questions 
had long ago arrived at maturity. It was time 
their claims should be settled; they were in- 
compatible with — indeed they were insufferable 
of — each other; and it had long been evident 
that no settlement, short of that to be effected 
by an armed struggle, could be satisfactory. 
That struggle, still pending, is partly a contest 
of race. Commercially, there can be no doubt 
England sympathises with the South, both in 
the abstract and in the practical view of the 
matter of Free Trade ; for, with us, it involves 
the material welfare of millions engaged in 
manufacture, and indeed the general prosperity 
of the country. 



GREAT BRITAIN. 253 

Socially, again, there can be no doubt that 
our national regard towards the two great an- 
tagonists is about equally divided ; for one is 
fighting for unity of dominion, concerning which 
a kind of craze has pervaded political circles in 
England and Europe generally during the last 
few years; and the other for independence; 
and though this appears to a judicial mind an 
object, in a moral point of view, at least equally 
worthy with the other, yet considerations con- 
nected with physical and superficial aspects of 
things attract, as might be expected, a more 
numerous class of supporters. 

But, morally, there exists another and deeper 
cause of antagonism between the elder and 
younger Powers, in which, it must be confessed, 
neither is sufficiently humane or sincere to 
secure the unqualified moral support of Eng- 
land. Even the extreme Abolition party in 
the North do not stand upon the same platform 
as England in reference to this question. They 



254 GREAT BRITAIN. 

have neither made the same sacrifices, nor 
shown the same disposition to meet the legiti- 
mate consequences of the sacrifice when made. 
Either the coloured classes, for instance, must 
be treated with consideration socially, and some 
approach to civil equality, or emancipation is a 
mockery. A people which refuses to eat, drink, 
sit, walk, talk, or worship with another does so 
either because naturally and justly superior to 
the other, or because they are hostile. For if 
equal, why endeavour to effect a theoretic level 
which practically you will not recognise? If 
friendly, why assume such a repulsive and re- 
pressive attitude ? 

But the truth is, there is insincerity on both 
sides ; for while one endeavours to justify prac- 
tical inhumanity as an alleged necessary ele- 
ment of the institution, the other asserts the 
institution itself to be incapable of reconcile- 
ment with Christianity, or piety indeed of any 
description. In this view of the case, it need 



GREAT BRITAIN. 255 

scarcely be added, the religious public of Eng- 
land unanimously coincide. But they who have 
listened — true, these are not many — to the argu- 
ments of any serious and intelligent Southerner 
on this matter, have some difficulty in sub- 
scribing unconditionally to this, even when 
dignified by the circumstance of its being known 
to be the John Bull view of the question. " If 
Abraham," he says, " and all the Hebrew patri- 
archs possessed slaves, the fact of ownership 
cannot be considered as absolutely incompatible 
with personal piety or acceptance with Deity. 
In the Gospels, though the word slave is re- 
peatedly introduced, slavery is never denounced 
as an institution by the Saviour ; and although 
the English translation uses invariably the word 
servant, yet the Greek dotdos, if meaning any- 
thing, certainly means slave. So too, it may 
be said by the way, with the Latin servus. All 
words indicative of a diminished force in the 
original idea of servitude, which was slavery, 



256 GBEAT BRITAIN. 

and suitable indeed to the artificial delicacy of 
modern life, and the intricate classification of 
existing society, are, so to speak, transparent 
shadows of expression, which the ancients, if 
ever, rarely, and the waiters of the Sacred 
V T olume never, studied or attempted to convey. 
But in the Pauline Epistles undoubtedly is the 
most critical authority to be found for the regu- 
lation of opinion among Christians upon this 
institution. Now Paul, unlike the remainder 
of his apostolic brethren, was, in all likelihood, 
born a gentleman ; speaking of him, therefore, 
in his unregenerate days, it may be allowable to 
say of him that he had received the advantages 
not only of private tuition, but of a university 
education ; he might have been called, by an 
approximation to our modes of speech, a Tarsus 
man, or a Tarsonian ; he had read the Greek 
dramatists, and had probably been present at the 
Olympic Games ; he had seen something of the 
world ; he had travelled considerably, and had 



GREAT BRITAIN. 257 

suffered proportionately ; he was the Ulysses of 
the new dispensation ; he knew mankind inti- 
mately — was familiar with all classes ; he ad- 
dressed alike unlettered multitudes and kings 
and governors, priests and philosophers, the 
learned, the powerful, the humble, with that 
perfect self-possession, freedom, and effect which 
is the singular privilege of genius inspired by 
faith, and tempered by the gracious air of a man 
habituated to good society." 

" What, now," says our Transatlantic professor 
of political theology, whose prolegomena we 
have just listened to, " was the policy of Paul on 
the point in question, at a future period of his 
career? That he was well acquainted with 
the system of absolute servitude, as it existed 
at the time in Greece and throughout the Eoman 
empire, is obvious. But did he or said he aught 
to discredit it as an institution? Did he de- 
nounce it as unholy, unnatural, or unchristian ? 
By no means. If a slave were a Christian, he 

s 



258 GREAT BRITAIN. 

was more to Paul than a king ; the king, if he 
remained a wilfully ignorant pagan, less than 
the meanest of his own converted followers. 
Paul's policy, then, was simply obedience to all 
legal and political authority, whether national 
or domestic. Weigh his conduct in regard 
to Onesimus and Philemon. Onesimus is the 
slave of Philemon, and becomes, like many 
others, a runaway — a fugitive slave. While in 
this condition he hears the words of spiritual 
freedom from the lips of the great Apostle, 
to whom the distinctions of social position, 
whether as Jew or Gentile, as slave or free, is 
a matter of perfect indifference in relation to 
the weightier interests of the immortal soul. 
He instructs his convert in the way of life, and 
treats him altogether in the tenderest and most 
fatherly manner. But he bids him return to 
Philemon ; remembering the social and legal 
duties incumbent on each, he returns the now 
Christianized slave to his master, with affection- 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



259 



ate prayers for both. The argument against 
this peculiar institution as anti- Christian evi- 
dently falls to the ground." 

Much of this defence is undoubtedly founded 
on a true basis ; but a satisfactory answer to it 
is found in the fact that slavery in ancient times 
and in the East, as a social, patriarchal, or do- 
mestic institution, is totally different in its main 
features from the modern institution as exem- 
plified in the West ; where it is simply a cruel 
commercial organization of human machinery 
for purposes of traffic. The moral feeling of 
this country against it, there can be no doubt, is 
therefore thoroughly justifiable ; though it some- 
times happens that the opinions of strangers, 
who are witnesses of the comfortable manner 
in which the domestic slaves are not unfre- 
quently lodged and treated, resembling in this 
aspect the Eastern or patriarchal system, differ 
from each other, and from the popular estimate 
both as to its nature and the extent of the evil. 

s 2 



260 GBEAT BRITAIN. 

Were it even granted, for the sake of argu- 
ment, that the institution itself were not so 
utterly condemnable on all the grounds assumed 
by its general opponents in this country and 
America, yet what may be justly complained of 
is the total disregard in many instances — often 
entirely at the option of the proprietor — often 
at the ordinary junctures of commercial pres- 
sure — of those elementary rights which are the 
distinctive marks of humanity as separable from 
the inferior orders of nature ; the rights of 
marriage and parentage ; the violation of which 
to those who have any sensibility must be painful 
in the extreme — to those who have none, bru- 
talizing in the same degree. If a certain respect 
were shown to these natural rights, and one or 
two others deducible from them, there would be 
a ready disposition in the minds of Englishmen 
to recognise to a given extent the exigencies of 
a state of society for which the present genera- 
tion is not exclusively answerable, provided that 



GREAT BRITAIN. 261 

the labouring and suffering race were not without 
some attempted alleviation of their lot. But at 
present it cannot be disguised that an impres- 
sion prevails on this side the water that both 
sections of the great republic are equally guilty 
of much needless and unjustifiable inhumanity 
towards the black and coloured races ; that with 
a vast superiority of legal and constitutional 
privileges peculiar to themselves, — with intelli- 
gence and education, more widely spread than 
among any population on the face of the earth, 
— with a deep and innate devotion to civil and 
religious liberty, — the community as a whole 
contrast unfavourably in their treatment of the 
African and his descendants with the less free, 
less liberal, less enlightened, and less moral 
nations of Mexico and Brazil. 

If the question of slavery, therefore, be the 
root of the war — as there can be no doubt it is — 
it becomes a reasonable inference to draw, that 
the purification and general amendment of the 



262 GREAT BRITAIN. 

institution on the one side, and on the other the 
more liberal and humane treatment of the inter- 
jacent classes, would constitute the best example 
they could set each other of a desire to return 
to a pacific order of affairs. A peace effected 
on such a basis would indeed be an honour to 
the whole community, a satisfaction to the kindly 
feelings of our nature, and a clear gain to uni- 
versal humanity. England would glory in such 
a result; and one frequent cause of misunder- 
standing and bitterness between the various 
circlets by which the moral and religious world 
is intersected would be happily removed. 

The first duty of the framers of all govern- 
ments, whose horoscope was so cast as to promise 
to the native an ordinary degree of longevity, 
has been to save the people from themselves. 
This can only be effected by the maintenance 
of the natural elementary division of society 
into classes, not necessarily the crude and glaring- 
systems of India or Egypt, but one in which an 



GREAT BRITAIN. 263 

efficient and self-regulating equilibrium speedily 
manifests itself, and the primary distinctions of 
which, as civilization, intelligence, and the moral 
harmonies of the world expand themselves, 
become more and more softened into secondary 
and indeed innumerable varieties. But the dis- 
tinctions still subsist ; and it is no longer a truth 
clamouring to be recognised, but one acknow- 
ledged and appreciated, that it is classes, not 
masses, that form the true basis of all repre- 
sentative and constitutional government. What 
the English people would wish to see their 
Transatlantic brethren enjoy would be a consti- 
tution in which there should not be illustrated 
every imaginable relaxation of political law ; a 
suffrage, for instance, compressed within such 
limits as should render the holders of it dis- 
tinguishable ; a mode of voting, by which the 
elector's exercise of his right or trust should 
be as clearly ascertainable by the public as the 



264 GREAT BRITAIN. 

opinions of the candidates; a house of repre- 
sentatives which should exemplify and inter- 
pret the opinions and views of the thoughtful, 
educated, and intelligent classes of society — 
those which ought to be the most influential in 
the State, but whose natural authority is un- 
happily neutralised by the indiscriminate opera- 
tion, politically, of the immense inorganic mass 
of the community, full of impulse, void of con- 
science; and a senatorial institution which, 
being based upon some more dignified founda- 
tion than a six years' tenure of office, might be 
endowed with the courage and independence 
requisite to fulfil the duties of its theoretical 
position in rectifying the errors of passion, or 
ignorance, or selfishness, to which the multitude 
— the majority, it is sad to think — have been 
in all ages of the world, and always compara- 
tively must be, liable ; but who in this case, by 
an anomaly of state polity which it is impos- 



GREAT BRITAIN. 265 

sible to justify, are themselves the original 
source and ultimate judge of an authority it is 
at their option periodically to depose. 

Doubtless a more general and more genial 
regard exists between England and America 
than between any other independent nations in 
the world ; and it is the sincerest wish of every 
true Englishman that the issues of the present 
contest may be overruled to the ultimate benefit 
of the States themselves, and to the universal 
appreciation by both countries of the blessings 
and advantages of peace. It is not Oregon, 
San Juan, or Kuatan, or any such name, that 
stirs up deeply in its fountains the blood of 
England or America. If there is ever ill-feeling 
simmering in the heart of either, it arises per- 
haps from the conviction on the part of one, of 
the other's persistency in a guilty error, and 
expresses itself in the other, in a refusal to 
acknowledge as just the somewhat haughty 
imputation of the righteousness of an inevitable 



266 GREAT BRITAIN. 

sacrifice. But these feelings and the occasion 
of them will probably pass away without more 
serious manifestations than such as both have 
become accustomed to, and which are invariably 
closed, such is the goodnature of our parental 
government, by the young republic's obtaining 
every substantial concession she required. Her 
"manifest destiny" England acknowledges at 
heart. But the ways of statesmen are not 
always the ways of Providence ; these are, pos- 
sibly, wiser than the speculations of the most 
accomplished minister — more certain of com- 
pletion than even the least ambitious projects 
of nations, however intelligent or determined. 
The ordeal through which she is now passing 
may not improbably prove to her the process 
of purification ; her exaltation may be in the 
house of suffering ; the scars of sword and fire 
that now sear her breast may peradventure 
suggest prudential warnings against future dan- 
gers, and serve perhaps as an almost sacred 



GREAT BRITAIN. 267 

incentive to the entertainment of holier pur- 
poses, and the fulfilment of more venerable 
obligations. 

Having thus glanced at a fair proportion of 
the higher and more prominent objects of pub- 
lic policy, as visible in the intercourse between 
our own and other States, it will not be neces- 
sary, nor would it be agreeable, to enter 
upon the vast sub-Alpine region of domestic 
and colonial legislation. There is only one 
movement of any very noticeable features 
which has taken place within our borders re- 
cently, on which a few observations may not be 
inappropriate, because expressive of a change 
in the direction of national tendencies, not 
only outwardly but inwardly. Nations, as is 
evident to even a cursory reader of history, do 
not persevere perpetually in the same groove 
of policy. Even Destiny seems to step out of her 
way. Accordingly as their change is directed 
with wisdom and foresight is their prosperity or 



268 GREAT BRITAIN. 

decline insured. The world is always old and 
always young. As in youth it is the physical 
constitution which has first to be developed 
and confirmed, all secondary advantages will 
follow, God willing, but without health or 
strength being but of dubious benefit to their 
possessor; so with nations exposed to the 
jealousy or cupidity of surrounding Powers, just 
sufficiently advanced to perceive the advantage 
of those qualities which they do not themselves 
possess, the consciousness of being inspired by 
the purest sentiments, the nicest honour, the 
justest and most generous motives, may event- 
ually prove of no avail, unless capable of being 
vindicated promptly and efficiently from any 
possible insult by a correlative degree of simple 
physical force — in other words, of naval and 
military armaments. 

Now, the naval force of Great Britain has 
generally been, and possibly ought always to 
be, such as is capable of bidding defiance to the 



GREAT BRITAIN. 269 

world. Her policy has sometimes been, and it 
may be again, to bid it, and to bide the brunt. 
But her military forces, exclusive of those re- 
quired for the distant possessions of the State, 
are, naturally and properly, used purely for 
defence. 

England has no aggressive schemes in reserve 
for Europe ; she has her own secret sins to 
answer for, but not that ; and can probably 
never be looked for on the Continent except 
in the capacity of an ally. But there appears 
to be an instinctive feeling or premonition 
throughout Europe, that times of general trouble 
are in preparation. What grounds exist for 
such a sentiment do not distinctly show them- 
selves ; nor can the quarter be predicted with 
precision where the decisive outbreak is to 
occur. This vague sense of uneasiness mani- 
fested itself, perhaps, with more acute sym- 
ptoms in this country than elsewhere ; but 
fortunately, while studying experimentally, as 



270 GREAT BRITAIN. 

it were, the pathology of panics, England dis- 
covered at last an effectual and even agreeable 
panacea in what may be called the Volunteer 
tonic : a movement which is deserving of all 
respect, as an expression of the national will, 
not only to put itself out of danger, but to pre- 
clude anything in the guise of future fear. 
How it has ramified through all classes, con- 
quered all opposition, converted all scoffers, it 
is unnecessary to relate. The only novelty in 
store for us, in connexion with the rifle-move- 
ment, that could now effect a " sensation," 
would be to read in the £ Gazette ' of a corps of 
Quaker artillery, commanded by the Honourable 
Member for Birmingham. 

Simultaneous with this movement, and with 
the manifestly more warlike tone of the press 
and of public opinion, as the offensive and de- 
fensive armaments of the country have kept 
gradually but grandly expanding their already 
colossal proportions, may be undoubtedly noted 



GREAT BRITAIN. 271 

the subsequent — perhaps it might be said con- 
sequent — reaction in the minds of the middle 
classes against further organic reform, which, 
if attempted on any considerable scale, can 
only be effected by the subordination of the 
general interests of the elective classes to those 
of one only, whose accession to more than the 
most moderate degree of power has always 
been fraught, as history now shows, both in 
France and America, with the gravest perils. 
The movement, indeed, may be looked upon 
as a practical protest upon that matter of the 
great electoral class; for such a body could 
never consent to be ruled except by its own 
representatives. 

Thus fortified within and without, England 
confessedly occupies a more fortunate and for- 
.midable position than she has probably ever 
before held. She has set an example ; she has 
given due warning to the world ; she is lavish 



272 GREAT BRITAIN. 

in her offers of advice ; she is mistress of many 
accomplishments: like Pallas, she wields at 
home the distaff, abroad the spear. She sur- 
veys her well-peopled cities, and her richly- 
cultivated fields, and is not wholly unconscious 
of her charms, nor indisposed to cherish them 
at present in their integrity. "But a little 
less spite in her speech," says a voice from 
across the Channel ; " and a little more con- 
gruity between her words and deeds," adds a 
guttural-toned orator, still further in the dis- 
tance, would much enhance her merits and 
her attractions. It is not enough that a 
press should think openly ; it should speak 
consistently and judiciously. Yet the English 
press, after persisting without any authority in 
ascribing to the pen or the immediate dictation 
of the French Emperor every violent and reck- 
less pamphlet which has appeared in Paris 
during the last three years, now accuses him 



GREAT BRITAIN. 273 

of furious despotism in requiring the signature 
of the writer to this mischievous class of publi- 
cations. It is not the act of an honest, or if 
honest, not of a prudent spectator, when nations 
are struggling with the embarrassments of ex- 
ternal war or internal rebellion, when a people 
are endeavouring to obtain the advantages of 
constitutional government, to ridicule or depre- 
ciate their attempts. Was the constitution of 
England satisfactorily adjusted at once ? Was 
the representation immediately made perfect? Is 
there any one ready to die for the belief that it 
is so now ? Nor is it thought kind or considerate 
to assist in hounding on the pack of insurrec- 
tionary cries which usually beset a government 
at such a moment. It would be better for Eng- 
land, if tempted to such an act, to think of her 
own condition and conduct in 1798 ; to reflect, 
indeed, upon all she has done in Ireland since 
the days of the truly pious and conscientious 



274 GREAT BRITAIN. 

Puritans, who desolated it from one end to 
the other, with fire and sword, and rapine; 
and then let her blame, with that haughty air 
and bitter tone, so natural in one whose re- 
putation is perfectly pure, so fascinating in 
any whose career, like hers, is irreproachable, 
the mild and dignified forbearance displayed 
at the present moment by a great continental 
empire towards a froward, fractious, and selfish 
member of its dominions. It were better that 
the foreigners whom we so cordially despise — 
every nation despises foreigners — each one in 
his separate version of national events, should 
not have to record, that while England never 
hesitated to put clown with a mercilessly rigid 
I arm the slightest uprising of rebellion in her 
/ own domains, she never scrupled to instigate 

| and justify it in those of even friendly govern- 

i 

ments ; whereby her conduct, history, and pro- 
pensities seem perpetually and diametrically 



GREAT BRITAIN. 275 

at variance with each other ; for it is not such 
recollections that will make her friends, when, 
if ever — which Heaven forefend ! — the hour of 
peril may come upon her. 



THE END. 



LONDON : PRINTED BY W. CLOTHES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, 
AND CHARING CROSS. 



5 



